


The Seventh Night

by Saeru



Category: Transformers (Cartoon Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Character Study, F/M, M/M, Ritual Sex, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-10
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2017-11-05 03:34:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 43,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/402006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saeru/pseuds/Saeru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the May 10 Sprinkkink prompt- Transformers (G1), Rodimus Prime/everybody: ritual sex - "Chosen One" </p><p>The threat of Unicron is gone, the Decepticons are vanquished, and all that remains for Rodimus to do is rebuild Cybertron. However, when dark dreams start to torment him during his recharge, he is horrified to learn that there might be more to becoming 'Prime' than getting a new trailer and a name change. If only he hadn't missed out on the first night. If only he could pass the Matrix on to someone else. If only he didn't have to pick the best of the Autobots to sleep with...</p><p>But that can't be so bad, can it?</p><p>Unwittingly forced to chose someone each night for his Matrix to sample, he has to learn the hard way how difficult it is to be leader, how far the boundaries of his friendships will go, and how much he'll have to give up to make 'all' into one.</p><p>(Rodimus x Arcee, Springer, Blurr, Perceptor, Ultra Magnus, and SPECIAL GUEST SPOILER. But not all at the same time.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This requires lots of notes. x-x
> 
> -I don't usually write smut.  
> -I probably wouldn't have written this smut, if not for [Sixthclone's](http://6thclone.tumblr.com/) love of Rodimus.  
> -I have...no idea if this was what the prompter was going for. x-x Hell, this didn't go the direction I expected it to, either. I hope it's still enjoyable.  
> -To keep this fresh, there will *probably* be multiple types of interfacing before the end. Right now, five chapters in, its tactile, spark, and plug-n-play. None of that occurs, however, in this chapter. This chapter is saaaafe~ Well. Safe except for Kup trying to explain things to Rodimus. That is never safe.  
> - **Watch chapter notes for warnings and ratings.**  
>  -I wouldn't have gotten ANYWHERE without [hellkitty](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty) or [Ryn.](http://archiveofourown.org/users/13th_Kingdom) Heavens, I need to thank you both, because I probably would have stopped writing without the two of you. <3

Cybertron was a wreck.

Rodimus could see most of the cityscape from Shockwave’s tower, laid out before him, glistening darkly in the starlight for hundreds of meters in every direction. Here and there were pockets of darkness, giant craters caused by war, by the Decepticon invasion, or by natural disasters occurring in the four million years since the Autobots had left Cybertron. Chunks of Unicron were still plummeting through the thin atmosphere, leaving fiery streaks across the sky over the Autobot’s new encampments.

Occasionally, his optics passed over areas where Shockwave had started to rebuild. Towering construction equipment blocked the streets, left silent as energon supplies had dwindled down to naught, abandoned next to piles of non-functioning drones.

There were dead drones everywhere, troops remaining from Shockwave’s last stand.

There were living ones, too, mindlessly roaming around the old Decepticon’s lair, performing repairs and polishing surfaces. Sometimes they stared at him.

Sometimes he stared back.

He couldn’t tell if they realized their master had been decommissioned. He didn’t know if they’d even care.

He certainly didn’t.

The part of him that admired Shockwave’s contribution to the defense of Cybertron was still drowned out by the part of him that scoffed at Decepticons. It was their fault, after all, that this was the half-dead planet he’d inherited. It was their fault that there were only a few hundred surviving Cybertronians. It was their fault he now sprouted a trailer every time he transformed.

Mostly that was their fault. If he wanted to be more technical, _he’d_ been the one to unlock the Matrix, and that had needed to occur because of _Unicron_ , not because of the Decepticons. But if they hadn’t killed Optimus, then he wouldn’t be standing here. Now.

Rodimus Prime.

It sounded too pretentious for him. Sure, he deserved it, but at the same time it felt wrong. Not like him.

Too much like someone else whose name should end in ‘Prime.’

He kept wondering if this was meant to be his destiny, at all, or if he’d just been the only one handy. He kept wondering if it would pick somebody else, now that all the war-hardy Autobots were coming to gather on Cyberton. He kept wondering if maybe Optimus shouldn‘t have died, and if maybe he wouldn’t be able to live up to that crazy kind of precedent.

Those feelings, more than any others, clued him into the fact that something was wrong.

Before, he’d known exactly what he was doing.

Now, he was second-guessing himself.

He felt uncomfortable in his own body, and uncomfortable on this barely recognizable world, and uncomfortable with the looks his friends were giving him.

He was uncomfortable with being Prime.

However, for right now, he didn’t have to be.

Venting a sigh that was mostly relief, Rodimus signaled his torso panels to open, waiting through the process of metal armor sliding unfamiliarly over inner plating, sending a shiver up his spinal struts. The Matrix nestled within, all too close to his spark chamber, warmed through contact with his engine and remaining more-than-comfortably familiar as he carefully slid his hands inside to grip the edges.

For a moment an echo of memories flickered though his processor, trailing emotions like tendrils over his tense shoulders. Instantly he felt himself relax, letting the feeling blanket him, recalling with unexpected arousal the sounds of soft moans, the touch of cool fingers probing his inner circuitry, the images of sleek, shining metal curves that he could not quite put a face to.

His memories?

Probably not.

Slightly horrified by the idea of where the images might have come from if they weren‘t his, he steeled himself, and pulled the Matrix free.

It glowed, brightly, shining out to him for an instant, glimmering like it held some amusing secret that he wasn’t going to be told. Then, it faded, dimming into darkness like a pleasant dream.

Thank Primus for that.

He’d had strange enough dreams himself the last few nights to be recalling someone else’s while standing here, awake.

“Y’know, its probably not a good idea to be doing that.” A wry voice spoke, behind him.

“Oh yeah?” He glanced over his shoulder, catching some of his panels smoothing back down out of the corner of his optic. Conscious of his open torso, he sent the command to shut that, too.

All better.

Much better, in fact: He was Hot Rod again.

“Yeah.” The voice responded, coming out of an ancient green bot leaning on one of Shockwave’s consoles. “It’s gotta get used to being in you, or some such thing. Trust me, kid, I’ve been around enough Matrix transfers to know.”

Hot Rod managed to grin. “Somehow, it doesn’t surprise me that you’ve been through more than one of them, Kup. But Unicron is gone. Cybertron is ours. And having this thing inside me is very….new. Is there really any reason why I have to always house it?”

“’Course there is!” Kup frowned, standing straight up off the console and waving an arm toward the mass of Cybertron beneath them. “It’s what makes you a Prime!”

He stared at Kup for a moment, feeling like he’d been answered again with ‘you have to do this because it’s how it’s always been done,’ instead of being answered with something that made sense. “We don’t _need_ a Prime. We just need a good leader, and I can do that fine like this.”

Kup stared right back at him, uncomprehending. “No, you can’t.”

“Kup…,” he started, exasperated already.

He was cut off when the old bot put a hand up in the air. “Might as well show you, then, since you’re too young to get it on your own. ‘We don’t need a Prime,’ my aft.” Kup grumbled, cocking his head toward the elevator leading down from Shockwave’s towering dome. “Why do you think we’d have a Matrix if we don’t need a Prime?”

“Probably because there was a giant floating planet-sized Transformer that decided to come and try to eat us,” Hot Rod answered, unimpressed.

“And how do you know there aren’t _two_ giant floating planet-sized Transformers wandering around out there?” Kup countered, narrowing the plating around one optic. “We’ve got to be ready, at all times! We’ve got to have a Matrix, and the Matrix chose you.”

The doors to the elevator closed around the two of them, and Hot Rod felt his gyros steadying him as the floor started to drop. In his hands, the Matrix still felt warm.

He looked down at it.

Then, he looked at Kup. “If another giant planet intent on eating us showed up, I think I’d have enough time to put this thing back in me before it got here.”

“But are you confident that you could use it at a moment’s notice?” Kup questioned, crossing his arms. “Are you confident that you’d still have a connection with it, after a decacycle goes by? A stellar cycle? A vorn? Do you really want to take that chance?”

Hot Rod looked up as the doors opened, and stepped out into the lobby of the makeshift Autobot Headquarters. There wasn’t an opportunity to answer Kup, even if he’d wanted to try answering a question that he couldn’t think of a snappy comeback to.

Down here, things were too bustling.

Arcee was the first one to catch his optics as he exited the elevator, tossing him the kind of brief knowing smile that still made him melt. She’d been working with Springer, taking head-counts and scouting out living quarters to house the multitude of warriors that were suddenly filling up the streets. She’d even gotten the Protectobots a makeshift clinic in the building next door, where they were operating as best they could after Ratchet’s untimely demise. It had helped.

It had helped a lot.

Ultra Magnus had taken the most burdens from him, though, as the huge mech was already familiar enough with command to organize everyone into task groups that could begin occupying Cybertron immediately. Hot Rod could see him in the corner, pointing as he gave directions to Jazz and his team. A larger group surrounded them, filled with many Autobots that Hot Rod recognized and some that he did not. Perceptor was handing out equipment nearby, small, quickly-rigged devices to help the Autobots navigate the maze-like streets to find any survivors or pick up energon. Springer was still tallying new arrivals. Since the meeting that morning, they’d already gotten so much work done.

All of them were looking towards him, now.

He noticed Arcee’s smile fade.

“Is…everything alright, Hot Rod?” she asked, softly.

She still called him Hot Rod.

That felt good.

“Of course it is. I came back down here to help out.”

“But the Matrix…” Arcee began, and Kup chuckled behind him.

“See,” the old mech said, “Everyone knows we’ve got to have a Matrix.”

“I still _have_ the Matrix.” Hot Rod grumbled, holding it up. “It’s right _here._ ”

“But doesn’t it have to stay inside of you?” Arcee asked, glancing sideways towards Springer as if to confirm her theory.

“For protection,” Springer nodded, as if it were an answer that was obvious.

“Oh, come on. I can protect it perfectly fine when I’m holding onto it. I’ve driven Daniel around hundreds of times, and he’s significantly more fragile than this.”

Springer didn’t seem to have a reply to that, but Ultra Magnus did.

“Hot Rod,” he spoke, quietly, calmly, and in that way that could command the attention of the entire room, if the entire room weren‘t suddenly busy minding their own business. “It is what Optimus would do.”

Ultra Magnus had called him Hot Rod, too.

He’d also made an infuriating point, and one that Hot Rod couldn’t easily counter. He knew--he _knew_ that just because Optimus had done things one way didn’t make that way right. He knew that.

He also knew that specifically ignoring the way Optimus had done things would be betraying everything the old Autobot leader had done, and everything he’d sacrificed to end the war. Optimus probably had _some_ reason for keeping the Matrix inside his own shell.

Ultra Magnus was trying to remind him of that.

“Technically, Optimus gave this to _you_ ,” Hot Rod replied, venting his frustrations in a sigh but finally relenting, crossing toward Ultra Magnus. “It’s never fit me quite right.”

“It needs time to adjust, same as you,” the large hauler said, glancing around the room as if willing the other Autobots to get back to work. Already, they were doing so, slowly, still glancing at Hot Rod and the Matrix from time to time. “Optimus said the same thing that you’re saying now, once.” Handing a data-pad to Jazz, Ultra Magnus made room against the wall for Hot Rod to join him.

“He sure did,” Jazz added with the slightest grin. “And you saw the kind of leader that he made. Cheer up, kid. The war is over. We’ve got a future to look forward to, again. Knowing that the Matrix chose a good successor, who can lead us into peace?” The small mech tapped his data-pad, and then hung it in a slot on his side. “That’s a hope most of us didn’t think we’d see. You’ll be fine.” He blinked out one optic, and turned to go. “I guarantee it.”

Hot Rod watched him leaving, trying to ignore the new throngs of bots that moved up in line to take his place.

“I wish I could be that optimistic.” He frowned, looking back down at the Matrix.

“I recall you being overly optimistic, not too long ago,” Ultra Magnus said, simply, pulling out a new data-pad to take care of the next mech in line.

“No, I was overly confident. There’s a difference.” Turning away from the crowds, Hot Rod let his torso plates slide open once more, grudgingly relenting to the fact that everyone seemed to feel strongly about this. He couldn’t really argue with hope…especially not with Jazz.

“Kup is still right, though.” Ultra Magnus frowned, serious as always, mostly keeping Hot Rod‘s privacy in the corner through his sheer bulk. “This isn’t actually about what is good for you, or what you want. It is about what’s good for Cybertron, and what Cybertron wants.”

“I know.” Hot Rod, unwillingly becoming Rodimus again, sighed. “I know.” The Matrix fit snugly back within him, both aching and satisfying at once. The ghostly trails washed over his vision once more, lighting Ultra Magnus with a faint haze of intoxicating crimson and the scent of clean lubricant. It was altogether much too painfully alluring, and Rodimus quickly looked away. “I just can’t even begin to explain what it is doing to me.”

He focused, instead, on Kup heading toward him.

The haze blessedly vanished.

“You’re worried that it’s changing you,” Ultra Magnus guessed, handing out another data pad and shuffling the next set of bots toward their new assignments.

“Yeah,” Rodimus nodded, watching Kup approach, stopping here and there to talk with some unfamiliar face in the crowd. Kup seemed to know everybody. “That, and more. I had this…dream. Last night.” And the night before. And the night before that.

“Do I want to know about this?” the blue and white mech asked, not even pausing in his routine.

“No, probably not, but I won’t go into details.” Rodimus felt bigger already, even if he was still dwarfed by Ultra Magnus. Carefully, he let his chest-plates close, and finally turned back around. Kup had arrived.

“Why not?” The old mech grinned. “It’d probably do that workaholic good to hear some tips on how to find a good position.”

Unable to imagine Ultra Magnus in any ‘good positions,’ Rodimus finally cracked a grin. “He probably thinks the best position is the high ground, Kup. We shouldn’t waste his time.”

“That is the best position,” Ultra Magnus said, his face unchanging.

This time, Rodimus tried not to laugh.

However, when he looked back to Kup, he realized the old mech was acting strangely serious. “If you’re already having dreams, kid, we need to get you started on the rituals before we are too late.”

Of all the things Kup could have said, this was probably the least expected. “I don’t think we can really afford to take time out of searching for bodies and fixing half-dead people to do any kind of rituals, Kup,” Rodimus said, feeling that it was something Optimus would have agreed with. “There’s too much to do right now.”

Ultra Magnus was still processing mechs, one at a time, handing out duty after duty to the able-bodied and those who could transform. He seemed completely absorbed in his work, in that way that meant he was paying absolute attention to everything Kup said.

“This ritual isn’t the kind that is for show, kid,” Kup grumbled, shaking his head. “This is one of those things that needs to be done, if the Matrix is going to work right.”

“Why didn’t this come up before?” Rodimus asked, looking out across the crowd to catch Perceptor’s and Arcee’s optics, cocking his head to indicate he wanted to talk to them. Whatever ritual this was, it would be best to get it over with…and it was about time for a mid-day meeting, anyway. “How come no one else has talked about it?”

“Because there aren’t too many around here who have participated in a Matrix passing,” Kup replied, simply, his own optics falling on Arcee and Perceptor as they finished the conversations they were in and started to head over. “You’ll probably want to grab a few more folk for this: they ought to hear about it, too.”

“These were probably things we should have heard about _before_ we were all in the middle of fixing a planet, Kup,” Rodimus sighed, even if he knew there wasn’t going to ever be a good time to approach him about this sort of thing. Probably ever again.

“Well how was I to know you’d start having the dreams right away! Tell me you didn’t wait more than a night…”

He considered this, and briefly counted. “Three nights. It’s been three nights, so far.”

It wasn’t easy to understand what came out of Kup’s vocalizer, then, but he caught enough to know that it was swearing.

Well, then. This was more serious than he had thought.

Glancing around the room, he looked for anyone else he trusted that was present. Blurr. Wheelie.   Springer, too, but he was already coming with Arcee.

Adding that to Ultra Magnus, there were seven present. It would have to do.

“You’ve missed a night, then. The other two were _meant_ to be your warning.” Kup finally managed, and gestured toward a room off of the lobby. “But that means you’ve got six still, which I guess is not so bad. Just don’t take that Matrix out again, and be ready. Just…be ready.”

“Be ready for what, old-timer?” Rodimus asked, a hint of worry starting to creep into his darkest thoughts.

Those dreams hadn’t been for the pure at spark.

“Be ready to give up yourself, your body, and your friends, for Cyberton.” Kup answered, cryptic and much too serious.

“Because it’s what Optimus would do?”

Kup laughed, and he could sense Ultra Magnus shifting, uneasily, still listening with his back turned.

“Optimus already did it, kid.”

And Rodimus had seen what Optimus had become.

“Just one final question, then, Kup.”

“Go for it.”

“Is it too late to give this thing to Ultra Magnus?”

He’d probably deserved being hit for that remark, he decided.

It was a good thing that he’d already thought to duck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright.
> 
> I guess I have a problem keeping things short.
> 
> When I saw this prompt on the Sprinkink this year, I really wanted to stretch my legs with it. I thought it would be a great opportunity to tackle Season 3 Autobots (which...well, I'm a Deceptiwriter, so that's hard) and explore a little of what was happening in that year or so between the 1986 movie and the rest of the cartoon.
> 
> Of course, when I sat down to start writing, that ended up jumping to the forefront. However, there is plenty of porn to come.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter, much like the last one, is pretty safe. Might be Pg-13 for concepts that are discussed, but there is nothing graphic yet. (Just as long as you don't have an active imagination, that is).

The meeting was not going nearly as well as Rodimus had hoped it would go, and he’d only been participating in it for a few cliks.

“I have to do _what?_ ” he exclaimed, physically taking a step backward away from Kup in horror.

The look on his face was matched by the small group surrounding them, standing in an office not far off the main lobby. It was stale inside, and the ancient desk was covered in a thin layer of rust and metal microdust, probably blown in from the cracked plastic of the windowpane.

Nobody was speaking.

Nobody could form the words.

Rodimus certainly couldn’t think of anything to add onto Kup’s explanation. It had been unfortunately thorough, and exacting in ways that Rodimus did not care to recall.

“He…has to do _what?_ ” Perceptor finally spoke up, his voice calm and reasonable except for the shaking twinge beneath it. “I’m sorry, Kup, but what you have just said makes no logical sense. It should not matter who Rodimus chooses to interface with, or when, and if it does then this ritual ought to be recorded elsewhere or be public knowledge. Surely something this important would not have gone unknown!”

For the first time, Rodimus found himself grateful for the lengths at which Perceptor could present his theories. It gave Rodimus time to recover.

Kup, unfortunately, had a sensible response. “It _was_ recorded. There are hundreds of mentions of it in the Hall of Records…but they were moved to the storage asteroid to keep them safe during the war, and slag if any of us know where that’s drifted off to.” He shook his head.

“We could get somebody tasked with finding it,” Ultra Magnus offered. “Having confirmation about the methods of this procedure would be for all of our benefits. Before we take any hasty….action.”

“Well, yeah, it would be nice to confirm, but only if you think you can get somebody to find it before midnight,” Kup retorted, sitting down on the rusty desk with little concern for the filth layered on it. He probably didn’t have much reason to worry--some of it was the same color that he was.

Rodimus, on the other hand, had plenty to worry about. “What,” he asked, dreading to know, “happens at midnight?”

“Well, if you haven’t taken someone to bed with you by then, the dreams get worse. And trust me, that ain’t pretty.”

Rodimus considered how much more…real…they had been last night than the two nights before, and started to see exactly what Kup was afraid of. “They’re bad enough, now. Will they keep getting worse each night?” he asked. If they became any more intense, then he wasn’t going to have the option of chosing who he interfaced with. He’d end up just grabbing the first mech who walked by.

“Yep,” Kup responded, simply, reaching to absent-mindedly scratch at his elbow-joint.

Springer was eyeing the old mech, warily, but it was Wheelie who looked at Rodimus openly to ask, “This not right, what dreams last night?”

Instantly, Rodimus felt the seven pairs of optics falling on him.

His engine down-shifted in a flush of shame. “Look, I don’t want to talk about it. But I think Kup might be right. This…this is probably going to need to be taken care of.” Taking in a breath of air to help cool his engine, he attempted to come to terms with what he had to do. “This doesn’t have to be a problem, though. I mean, if it’s just a few nights, I can ask Elita’s girls to--”

He didn’t have the chance to duck Kup’s blow, this time.

“How hard is it to think with more than eight bits?” The old mech growled. “This isn’t about having some pleasure harem, this is about the future of Cybertron! You’re supposed to pick the mechs that represent the kind of world you want to build!”

Reaching up, Rodimus rubbed at the dent Kup had managed to leave in his crest-piece. “And why _wouldn’t_ I want to build a Cybertron full of hot femmes?”

There was a rain of pummeling, at that, and some of it he was pretty sure hadn’t just been coming from the old, green transformer. He’d…probably deserved that.

Okay, he’d definitely deserved that.

But it was hard to take this seriously. It was hard to listen to Kup talk about the ‘seven nights of establishment’ and imagine himself going through the complicated…positions…without feeling like this was some huge joke. It couldn’t be real.

It couldn’t.

“Alright, Kup,” he said, after a moment. “What am I _really_ supposed to do to stop these dreams?”

“You’re supposed to do what I just told you to do, kid. You’ve got to pick six members of society--er…five, now, since you missed a night--that you trust will make a good Cybertron.”

“Does it…really have to be five different people, though? I mean, surely Optimus didn’t…” He trailed off, realizing he didn’t want to go there. “With…anyone other than Elita…”

The room had gone completely still. Even Blurr was managing, finally, not to fidget.

“I’ve heard stories.” The blue Autobot spoke up, his words running together, but somehow quieter than they normally were. “Jazz, Ironhide, Ratchet, Wheeljack, Prowl…all of them close to Optimus, all of them keeping him safe, always trusted, with him from the beginning. That’s one, two, three, four, five, and Elita makes six! But even counting that way, they’re still one night short. It could have been Bumblebee, maybe, he was always around Optimus too…” For once, Blurr shut himself up, realizing what he was about to suggest. “Probably not Bumblebee, too young, never mind. Forget I said anything, it probably was someone else.”

“No, it wasn’t Bumblebee,” Kup said, rubbing a hand over his face. “But thank you for that mental image, Blurr. The seventh night isn’t supposed to be for you to pick, anyhow, it’s for the Matrix to decide. I don’t know if anyone was with him, then or if you’re just meant to be left alone. I never really asked.”

“You certainly know enough about the rest of it, for not asking.” Springer said, looking more than mildly perturbed.

“I was around for a ritual before Optimus’s time,” Kup answered, simply, his hand falling back down to the desk. “I guess I just felt that it was my job to oversee.”

“And we’re all. So. Grateful for that, let me tell you.” Rodimus tried not to shudder, not really knowing what to do from here. “But let’s…uh…let’s look at this logically.” He glanced to Perceptor. “Most of the mechs that Blurr mentioned were dead, but I saw Jazz this morning. It should be easy enough to comm him up, and…uh. Ask him.” He took a deep cycle of air in through his vents. “If he’s ever slept with Optimus Prime.”

Arcee crossed her own arms, this time, and gave Rodimus a particularly baffled look. “Maybe you should think on another way to ask him, before you give him a comm like that. _If_ he’s even in the area. I believe Ultra Magnus sent him out to scout for energon and leftover Decepticons.”

“Then I’ll have to act fast.” Rodimus managed to grin, and started up a quick communication to the relay tower for longer-range broadcasting. “Jazz, can you hear me?” he asked, out loud, feeling that everyone should hear this.

“Loud and clear, Prime,” Jazz’s voice echoed, coming out through Rodimus’s stereo speakers.

Being called ‘Prime’ was unexpected.

“We were just wondering, Jazz, if you have a few moment so we can ask you some…er…questions.”

“Well, I’m kind of busy here…and, generally, scouting means it’s best to maintain radio silence. But I haven’t gone that far out, yet. How’s that ritual goin‘?”

Rodimus’s spoiler wings went completely flat against his back.

“Er, Jazz, that is actually what we called to ask you about.”

“Me?” The voice sounded surprised. “Really? When you’ve got Kup right there to explain it all to ya?”

Awkwardly, everyone’s gaze turned toward the old warrior sitting on the desk. Kup flicked off a piece of rust, and pretended not to notice.

“So the ritual. It’s real?” Rodimus asked, just to confirm.

“It was last time I checked. Not really something I like to talk about, though. It’s supposed to be private.”

“If it’s private,” Rodimus asked, almost exasperated. “Then why did you bring it up when I commed?”

There was a soft laugh from the other end of the communicator, and the sound of an engine picking up speed. “Because Kup told me you’d probably do something like this. And watching you tryin’ to break the ice was getting painful.”

“Okay, then. Thank you, Jazz.”

“Anytime, Prime.” The laugh continued. “Jazz out.”

And that…was that.

Now, nobody was looking at Kup on the desk, not wanting to see him trying exceedingly hard not to be smug about this. Rodimus, himself, was trying exceedingly hard not to haul off and hit him. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy a good ‘roll on the race track,’ but doing it for the Matrix was…awkward. It was beyond awkward.

How could he ask any of his team-mates to do this?

How could he ask mechs and femmes that he respected and had worked beside and had fought beside to come be…intimate…with him, in sequence, because he had to?

How could he even decide?

Picking the sorts of things that a new Cybertron would need was a far cry from picking the sorts of bots he’d feel comfortable asking to do this. He would need people who were strong, and who were smart, and who were confident, and who were compassionate, and who were…

…who were standing right in front of him.

Frag them all.

…

Literally.

Arcee was the first to meet his optics, and it was exactly what he needed to see, right now.

Arcee was someone he could feel comfortable with. Arcee was charismatic, and strong-willed, and compassionate. Arcee was kind, and easy to get along with. Arcee was beautiful. Arcee was someone he’d had a crush on for much, much too long.

“Arcee, would you…?”

“Hot Rod…“ She shuttered her optics for a moment, and slowly nodded. “If this is something that you need, then…” She trailed off, but did keep her gaze steady on him. “I would willingly help you build a better world.”

Springer was shifting, agitated, next to her, and Rodimus could tell it was only with the greatest restraint that he wasn’t objecting right now. His optics blazed, nevertheless, and wouldn’t let go of Rodimus’s, waiting to see what the new ‘leader of Cybertron’ was going to do next.

“Springer…,” he began, and trailed off as Springer’s look turned sharper, and the optics narrowed.

“What.”

“Look, this is hard enough on all of us. Asking Arcee was just…it was just….easier on me, okay? It doesn’t mean I’m keeping her, any more than it means I’m keeping anyone. Especially since I’m going to need your help, too…”

“Me?” Springer almost coughed on the words, his arms unfolding in surprise. “What, you want me, too?”

“The mechs I trust the most are already in here with me.” Rodimus confirmed, looking down the line to each of them. “Ultra Magnus. Blurr. Perceptor. Wheelie.” Oh, Primus, wait. No. Not Wheelie. His engine stuttered for a moment as he back-tracked, and shook his head. “Look, I just mean we’ve all been through plenty together. Even if…uh, Wheelie, you probably should sit this one out. But the rest of you…”

He counted. Arcee. Springer. Ultra Magnus. Blurr. Perceptor. That was five.

“It’s okay, Wheelie have plans, today.” The young mech offered, even if it sounded conciliatory. “Probably should go, don’t…really want to know.”

“Yeah, alright, Wheelie, you’re excused.” Rodimus winced. “Sorry about that.”

“Goodbye for now, you’ll live somehow!” was the reply, and it was actually accompanied by a wave as one of the newest Autobots vanished out of the meeting room.

There was a communal sigh of relief.

“And…that leaves you six.” Rodimus said, glancing around. “Does anybody have any objections?”

“I have plenty of objections.” Ultra Magnus said, stepping to fill the gap before the door that Wheelie had left, locking it behind him. “But if you really think this needs to be done…as a Prime…”

Rodimus shook his head. “Look, I don’t know for sure. I don’t know anything for sure. But we’ve got Kup’s word, and we’ve got Jazz’s confirmation, and we’ve got my…my dreams. And there’ve been these weird twinges every time I’ve touched the Matrix, and, Primus, can we please stop talking about this? If anyone has to say no, I understand. Just let me know now, so I can think of someone else.”

The mortified silence that followed was unbearable.

It was even more unbearable when Perceptor raised his hand. “I…ah. I’m not certain that I’m comfortable with this idea. I mean.” There was actually condensation forming on the edges of the microscope’s armor, places where the coolness of embarrassment warred with the warmth of his motors. “This is not an area in which I have much expertise. I fear that I will bungle something up, or miss a cue, or not properly…ah…stimulate the notable areas requiring….” He trailed off, horrified. “…requiring stimulation.”

“It’s okay, Perceptor.” Rodimus said, as understanding as he could muster. “I don’t think anyone is ‘comfortable’ with this. But I’d…,” Slag everything, this was difficult. Perceptor was the only scientist alive that he knew and was comfortable with. “I’d really like it to be you. Cybertron is going to need a strong intellect, and there aren’t many choices who are still alive.”

“There is Jetfire?” Perceptor offered.

Rodimus tried to imagine the shuttle fitting into his bed-chamber, and realized exactly how well that wouldn’t go. “Jetfire was a Decepticon,” he countered, hoping this excuse made sense. “I think I’d rather not take my chances with that becoming part of our culture. I know I said I’d try to find replacements, but…it’s hard to replace you.” He glanced around. “It’s hard to replace any of you.”

There was no one as fast as Blurr, or as strong and resolute as Ultra Magnus. No one had Springer’s skills, and no one had Arcee’s charisma.

No one had Perceptor’s intelligence, either.

“Then the five of us are gonna have to make it work!” Blurr chimed in, looking up from where he’d been examining a dilapidated filing system. “It’s just one night, and then it’s over, and if it’s just one night, then that is easy enough. We will not ever have to talk about it, we will not ever have to tell anyone we’ve done it; it will be just like it was with Optimus. You’ll see.”

“That’s the spirit.” Kup grinned, finally standing up off of the desk. “And it won’t even stop you from doing your regular duties. Arcee, Springer, Blurr, Perceptor, and Ultra Magnus. This kind of reminds me of the crew that I went in on Sentinel with--”

“Not now, Kup,” Springer and Arcee said in unison, visibly shuddering as they headed for the doorway. Ultra Magnus unbolted it, and stood aside for them.

“We’ve agreed to this. It doesn’t mean we have to like it,” The green triple-changer frowned, “Or hear about other incarnations of it. But I’ll still see you, tomorrow night. I don’t want to hear a thing about it until then, and I don’t want to hear about it afterward.”

“That’s fair enough,” Rodimus agreed, wishing he could have the same arrangement instead of having to go through this, over and over again.

One by one, the others filed out, with Ultra Magnus ducking through the doorway last of all, and Kup lingering behind. He stared out after them, watching them returning to their duties, watching the crowds in the lobby talking to them, watching everything slowly melt back into what it had been before he’d come down.

This wouldn’t be…unpleasant, he knew. They were all good soldiers, and they’d all do anything for the Cybertron and for the Autobot cause. Hell, that was what he was doing, right now.

But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t make things harder on him.

This Matrix was going to be more trouble than it was worth.

“There’s one more thing, kid,” Kup whispered, nudging him in his side with an elbow-joint that squeaked.

“Then I’d rather hear it now, instead of being caught by surprise, later,” Rodimus replied, wearily.

“Heh, good answer. Sounds like you’re learning.”

“I’m learning plenty.” Most of it was lessons that he didn’t want to learn. He’d have rather been out there, getting an assignment, driving off with his exhaust pipes echoing the deep, throaty purr of his engines. Showing off. Anything was better than this constant, foreboding sense of responsibility. No wonder Optimus had been so eager to sacrifice himself.

“Well, there’s one more lesson left. You ready?”

He was as ready as he’d ever be. “Go ahead.”

“When these six nights are over, you won’t be able to interface with anybody.” Kup said, slowly, turning to face Rodimus with an expression that was deadly serious. “Not anybody. Not ever. Again.”

Scratch that thought he‘d just been thinking.

He couldn’t ever be ready enough for pronouncements like that.

“Kup…,” he growled.

But Kup just stared at him, forlornly, and didn’t offer any new advice.

It looked like he was just going to have to make these last six nights count.

That, or he was going to have to toss the Matrix into deep space, where it would never be seen or heard from by anybody.

He was the last person that it should have chosen.

It just seemed that fact was obvious to everyone but it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, when I roughly plotted out this story, the first two chapters were just a simple scene with everybody already in place and Kup unceremoniously dropping the details of the ritual on them.
> 
> In fact, it reads as exactly this:
> 
>  
> 
> _On their first return to Cybertron, everything is dismal and bleak. Ultra Magnus mostly takes charge in getting everyone organized and put immediately to work rebuilding it and fortifying it. Rodimus is uncertain exactly what to do, until Kup points out that they need to get started on the ritual, before its too late._
> 
> _They already lost one night._
> 
> _Rod and everybody is like What the Hell what ritual? And Kup laughs and only kind of explains, and Rod is like Oh god do I have to with you? and Kup is like No you fool, you pick the folks you think best represent the Cybertron you want to make._
> 
> _And Rod is like oh hey I can just sleep with hot chicks! And then he's beaten over the head a bunch._
> 
>    
> Pretty much right after that, there were supposed to be four chapters of porn.
> 
> Yeah.
> 
> Four.
> 
> Arcee and Springer were going to be together on one night, Blurr's night was going to be glossed over, Perceptor would be a night, Ultra Magnus would be a night, and SPECIAL GUEST SPOILER would be a night. Four nights.
> 
> Then, everything changed.
> 
> Stick around, because porn is next.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is where the smut begins.
> 
> This is soft, but explicit. Mostly tactile, only vague plug-n-play, and spark.  
> Pretty much every porn chapter will have spark, because of the Matrix.

The first night, he figured, would be the easiest.

He knew he’d chosen rightly with Arcee, and he knew he wouldn’t really regret it, even if there was a part of him that was screaming with guilt and shame over having picked her, at all. She and Springer were together. The arrangement was real, if unspoken. Everybody knew it.

He knew it, too.

He’d also known that Springer and Arcee both would have objected if they hadn’t respected him, somehow. If they hadn’t believed in what he was doing.

He was glad _someone_ did.

In a way, though, even if Arcee had made it easier for him to break the ice in facing this ritual, he wished he’d saved her for the final night. Knowing what he knew now, he wasn’t certain how delighted he was that Ultra Magnus would be the last mech he slept with before he died.

He was pretty sure Ultra Magnus wasn’t delighted about it, either.

None of them were.

That was kind of a shame. He’d really rather have had his last set of experiences be ‘fun,’ instead of ‘methodical.’ This was turning into a nightmare, really fast.

It was, however, difficult to think of it as a nightmare when Arcee stepped into the room, a data-pad in hand, her long, slender legs carrying her gracefully up the first few steps inside. “You probably should lock the door,” she suggested, glancing back at it. “I’d rather not have to explain this, if we’re interrupted.”

Frag, he didn’t want to have to explain it, either. Especially if he were caught with Springer or Perceptor.

Thankfully, everyone had been willing to keep this amongst themselves. Blurr had needed watching even so, but despite letting a few lines slip about being ‘busy’ in two days time he hadn’t ever gone into any gruesome details. He hoped he’d chosen right, with Blurr.

He hoped he’d chosen right, with anybody.

Arcee, though, he didn’t have to worry about.

He didn’t.

He wouldn’t.

He’d lock the door casually, as if nothing was wrong, and he’d lean against it, smoothly. Just like this. And then he’d smile. “I see you brought a data-pad. Planning on taking notes?”

Arcee stared at him for a moment, across the room. The dark purple décor left from when it had been Shockwave’s made her stand out like a light in shadows, pulling at some arousing chords next to his spark chamber.

She was beautiful.

He hoped that that was not the Matrix talking.

“Kup gave this to me, actually,” she said, after a moment. “They’re diagrams.” Without even shuttering her optics, she flipped the pad over to face Rodimus and turned it on.

They were surprisingly…detailed…diagrams.

“Primus, why the hell didn’t he just explain it to me?” Rodimus asked, leaning off the wall, his mood instantly broken.

“Because he might have tried to explain it in person,” Arcee answered, “and I won’t say anymore than that.”

She didn’t need to.

Unfortunately, he had too good of an imagination on his own.

Kup, without even being here, was managing to ruin his night.

Arcee, on the other hand, was doing everything she could to save it. She’d sat down on the edge of the impressive berth, setting the pad down next to her to scroll through the images provided. Her legs were crossed at the ankles. She bit her lip.

Then, she looked up.

“I suppose we could just improvise,” she said, and let her optics trail over Rodimus’s frame as he approached.

That was all the invitation that he needed.

He’d wanted an invitation far too long.

His knee planted itself on the berth and he leaned down, capturing the lip that she’d been biting with his own, finding her slender waist with his new hands. With his new, strong hands.

She tensed in his grasp.

He tensed, also, wanting to make sure she was comfortable before continuing.

She probably wasn’t.

He probably wasn’t.

Then, she relaxed, slowly, one sleek arm coming up around his neck, draping there between his helm and his back spoiler wings. He’d never held her like this before.

He’d always wanted to.

He pressed further in, his other knee straddling her on the berth, weighing down dangerously close to the data-pad she’d just been reading. His optics glanced over the first few diagrams, but disregarded them, understanding the basics of what he had to do.

The ritual was about giving samples of the world he wanted to build to the Matrix.

It wouldn’t be so far away from bonding.

Five times, over five evenings.

His spark would hurt when this was through.

Right now, though, he was having difficulty restraining it. He could feel a pulsating heat surging through his circuitry from the matrix’s center, lighting the tips of his sensor nodes on fire. If there had been any doubts that this activity was exactly what he was supposed to be doing, they were quickly being chased away.

He’d done this before, besides. It was only once or twice, and it certainly wasn’t enough to be familiar with the routine, but he’d still done it before with one of the curious femmes from Elita-1’s crew. He remembered what felt good…or he at least remembered what he thought felt good.

Running both hands down Arcee’s sides, unable to stop from shivering, at the silken, polished armor activating every sensation in his fingertips, he knew his memories weren’t lying to him. If just _touching_ her could feel this right, then he couldn’t imagine how much better it would be when they bared their sparks.

Not until she stroked the edges of his wing-like spoiler, and he felt like the flames on his armor were more real than paint.

There was a reason that the second image showed him glowing long before their sparks would even meet.

He was _supposed_ to want this, and he was _supposed_ to enjoy it, no matter whom he’d chosen to be with. The Matrix would make certain of that.

However, he didn’t need much prompting now. Arcee’s optics were glowing up at him, steadily blue, and trusting. Her hand continued to play behind his back, stroking, gently, and pinching along the thin, delicate golden metal. He was melting, slowly, his knees already growing weak, but completely unable to hold out when her other hand reached down and dipped into a transformation seam.

Heat surged through him.

He longed to give it a release.

Arcee would be that conduit, tonight.

He let himself lay out along her, over her, his ventilations pulling in deliciously scented air with every intake. He could have had something like this, he knew.

He had wanted to pursue Arcee, before, if he’d been a little older or a little wiser, or if he’d been at the right place at the right time instead of Springer.

He could have pursued her, but then it had been too late.

His fingers found a port on her side, and the tiniest shock of satiation rippled through him. He needed to connect. He _needed_ to, if he was going to let off some of this excess charge, and he needed to before they bonded, before the dangerous amplitudes of two uniting sparks shorted out dangerous circuitry.

She arched underneath him at the touch, the tiniest gasp escaping her sculpted throat, her expression surprised.

He didn’t comprehend that, for a moment, until his own interface plug seated itself home in her slot, and sudden, desperate relief wrote itself across her face. The arm around his neck tightened, and she pulled herself up to meet his lips again.

It had affected her, too.

Whatever maddening heat this was, it had finally touched her core, setting both of them aflame. They danced in the fires, together, sleek metal writhing over hardened surfaces, every touch exploding over his sensor net like gravel, grinding textures into his memory that were wiped clean with a slick polishing cloth. The lance of worry that struck through him at how Arcee might feel about this, afterward, was washed away, because she was here, now, and she wanted him. She wanted him.

She wanted him to touch her.

He touched her, his hand cupping around her strange, beautiful curves, stroking over her torso. She touched him, her fingers gripping silver exhaust pipes or curling across the yellow flames scrawled on his hood.

He could not have stopped himself from opening his spark to her if he’d tried.

The haunting tendrils of memory flashed through him, for a moment, cresting his already piqued desire beyond the brink of his control. It was bittersweet, familiar, slick, and gleaming, and he knew the tendrils for what they were, and what they’d been when he’d tried to remove the Matrix and felt them before.

They were the Matrix.

They were _its_ desire, and _its_ need.

They were too much, when coupled with his own desires and needs, for one body alone.

Distantly, Rodimus could see Arcee, her own chest open, her head back, her optics shuttered under him. He could see her through a haze of light so bright that it was shorting out his filters. He felt himself cry out, and he felt sensation rippling, starting at his fingertips and racing inward, giving him only the briefest moment of anticipation and dread before it hit, full force.

He overloaded, with all the voltage of the Matrix.

He could hear Arcee cry out, too.

Then, for a few clicks, he couldn’t hear that much of anything.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to.

Everything felt…burnt.

Everything also felt delightfully, sinfully good.

Somewhere, somebody was trailing their fingers down his spinal struts, chasing away the heat with tiny shivers. Somewhere, he could feel that same someone shifting underneath him, sighing softly.

He was pretty sure that they were saying his name.

“Hot Rod?” the silken voice asked, breaking through the murkiness. “Hot Rod, can you hear me?”

He could hear her.

He even knew it was Arcee.

He remembered that.

Now, he needed to remember how to turn on his optics.

“Hot Rod,” Arcee persisted. “Hot Rod, come on. Hot Rod. _Rodimus._ ”

His optics blazed back, cycling into focus, and he smiled over at the femme that he was still mostly lying on. “I like Hot Rod, better,” he said, after a moment.

“I like Hot Rod, too,” she said, softly. Her voice was sad. “It’s been hard getting used to seeing you like this.”

“It’s been hard being like this.” He moved, slowly, shifting off of her, letting his torso-plating slowly close, again. The overly-bright glow had dimmed back to acceptable levels.

Right now, he just felt satisfied.

Satisfied, and the tiniest bit ashamed. “Arcee…,” he started, not even sure how to apologize for the act that had just taken place.

“Please, don’t, Rodimus,” she said, and pressed a finger to his lips, pleading quietly with her optics. “It’s enough to know that Kup was right. It’s enough to know that Cybertron needs this.”

“But…” he started, and trailed off, unable to tell her how much he had needed this, too. This…wasn’t for him, any more.

Nobody was.

“I could feel it. The Matrix. Right next to your spark, I could feel it, too. You’re going to have your work cut out for you, Rodimus…” She was using his new name, now. Even after she had called him Hot Rod, before. “Use that which I gave it well.”

Leaning forward, she kissed him on the crest, holding there for just a moment. He could feel her lips, gentle, soft, and yielding, even as he could also feel her spark, compassionate, strong, and resolute. “I owe you my thanks, Arcee,” he managed, trying not to let his sadness carry through his words.

“Oh, Rodimus,” she answered. “If you were going to take any femme to bed with you tonight, I am not disappointed it was me.” She pulled away, sliding out from under him, carefully checking her plating to make sure nothing was in disarray. “I’d hate to see our old traditions lost.”

“No, you’re…you’re right,” he said, sitting up slowly, scooting back to prop himself against the wall. Everything still felt a little…singed…even if the sensory feedback coming in from his spark had made it more than worth it. “Cybertron needs femmes.” They were a part of history, trailing back to a time when Cybertronians had did what they did best in order to thrive. In order to maintain good relationships with an all-female race, they had ‘transformed.’ It had done them good for millennia, and it did them good, now, and….well.

Rodimus had always loved the look of them.

Of one, in particular.

And she was heading for the door, right now. “I am glad that you feel that way, Rodimus,” she said, throwing a small smile back over her shoulder. “Thank you, for a lovely night.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Only if Springer lets me out of his sight.”

Rodimus nodded, understanding just how that might go. “Then I’ll see Springer, tomorrow night.”

“Only if I let him out of _my_ sight.” Arcee finally countered, pausing just at the door. “Sleep well, Rodimus.”

“Sleep well.”

She was gone.

With a long, heavy sigh he rolled over, plopping face-first back down on his bed. Inside, he felt the faintest stirring, the faintest…loss, as Arcee herself walked further and further away. It hadn’t been a real bonding, at least--the Matrix had seen to that--but he didn’t suppose there was any way to touch sparks with another individual and not remain affected by them.

It hurt, and he didn’t want to sleep alone, tonight…but tonight, there was nobody else.

Tonight, there was only Rodimus Prime.

And he knew, readily enough, how quickly he was going to despise that name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is the first time I really sat down to write a smut scene with the intention of writing a smut scene. 
> 
> There were a few goals I had in mind when writing it, and I did manage to hit almost all of them, even if I wish this had been a little more intense.
> 
> On the other hand, it couldn't be. I wanted to have something to build _up_ toward, after all, which prevented me from going in with all the big guns blazing, so to speak. I also wanted it to be a bit more hesitant, since Rodimus is both dealing with his ultimate wish-fulfilment AND dealing with having to be leader Rodimus and sleep with another mech's significant other. 
> 
> The Matrix, of course, has other ideas. 
> 
> Beyond that, I'm glad I got to touch on what it is to be a femme, a bit, and why Rodimus never ended up with Arcee.
> 
> There will be more on that, next chapter.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter, like the last, is filled with smut.
> 
> Today, we have almost entirely tactile, and, (as ever) spark.
> 
> I feel like I should warn for more or something, but it's Springer.
> 
> Please enjoy.

The next day had been unbearable for Rodimus.

Even if they’d all agreed to not _talk_ about what was going on behind the scenes at night, he still caught everyone, including Wheelie, tossing glances to him and Arcee as they worked. Arcee, herself, was managing with grace, still smiling, still carrying on in her tasks without any indications that something was wrong.

He was trying to do that, himself.

At the moment, they were collecting materials to bring to Iacon, prepping now for a move that they probably couldn’t manage for a half a solar cycle.

Granted, it didn’t matter how long it took, because everyone wanted to be back in Iacon. Nobody wanted to be here, at Shockwave’s tower, where the Decepticon symbols didn’t fade even after you’d painted over them. Nobody liked being reminded of a war that had just ended solar cycles ago. Nobody liked how much work lay ahead.

They were all willing to do it, though. Ultra Magnus had sent out teams to collect data yesterday, and now there was nothing to do but get started on the construction they’d need. Rodimus had come up with the idea, that morning, to start moving the functioning repair equipment from Shockwave’s tower to the old Autobot capital, and, amazingly, when he’d stood in the lobby and made the announcement, the crowd had even managed to cheer.

They were going home.

They wanted to go home.

He wanted that, too.

He’d hated that this had been the only part of Cybertron with still functioning energon lines, and he’d hated the tiny mementos of Decepticon life that still lay around, wherever he went. He hated recharging in Shockwave’s room.

It was a nice room, though, he had to admit. The Decepticon guardian had chosen well for himself, taking a place up in the tower where he could observe the world around him. The consoles left there directly fed into a central database that the scientist had been amassing, and, amazingly, Rodimus had found incredibly accurate records inside, intact.

Shockwave had tried to preserve Cybertron.

He’d done it, alone, over the 4 million years the Autobots and Decepticons had been sleeping, piece by piece and day by day.

Maybe, after all that work, he’d deserved the giant balcony in his recharge chambers.

Rodimus just felt…odd about it. He felt odd staying in here. He’d felt odd since Ultra Magnus had showed it to him, and pushed him inside, and told him to try and get some rest the first night.

As if anyone could ‘get some rest’ after battling with Galvatron and saving their home planet from a god.

Maybe Ultra Magnus had thought he’d deserved the balcony, too.

With a sigh, he flicked a tiny piece of rubble off the railings that ringed the edges, watching it fall down, and down, and down, too tiny to make a noise wherever it hit far below. There were still comets, streaking away through the eternally night sky. It was peaceful, right now.

He flicked another piece of rubble off the railings, and leaned on them, scrolling along a data-pad that mentioned how much energon they’d gotten from Earth through the space bridge today. It would be enough to power some of the construction equipment, at least, and maybe to get most of the troops ready for building a bridge across the gaping canyon that separated Shockwave’s tower from the edges of Iacon’s city-state.

It was Arcee’s data-pad.

He hadn’t remembered to give it back to her, last night.

He…hadn’t had the nerves to do it, today.

Not with the way that Springer had been glaring at him.

Springer. Glaring.

Primus, this was going to be a hard night.

He turned around, finally leaving the balcony behind him as he heard the expected knock on his door. Whatever he was going to do now, he’d…have to make it good. The last thing he wanted was for his old best friend to have it out for him, forever. He set the data-pad down, took a deep cycle of air, and opened the door.

The green mech stood there in the doorway, tense, large, and still glaring.

“Springer,” Rodimus said, and gave a little nod.

“Rodimus,” was the only answer, and Springer brushed past him to head inside. “Nice room you have.” He got the words out, methodically, not particularly trying to break the ice. “It’s very. Roomy.”

“It’s a place to sleep at night; that’s all I care about.” Rodimus replied, and closed the door behind him. Tonight, unlike last night, he didn’t have any idea where to begin.

Where _did_ you begin, trying to sleep with the significant other of the femme you slept with the night before? And in the same room? Especially when you’d grown up with said mech, and survived close calls of death with said mech, and been pals, and…well, Rodimus had always thought that when you said you’d done ‘everything’ with your best friend, that it wasn‘t supposed to mean. Er _Everything_.

“So. What is the minimum I’ve got to do to get this done and over with?” Springer asked, after a moment, still looking around at everything that wasn’t Rodimus.

“You mean Kup didn’t give you any diagrams?” This was almost a surprise.

Apparently, it was almost a surprise to Springer, too, who finally _did_ look at Rodimus, if only to continue his glare. “No, and thank Primus for that. Don’t you know, by now?”

“I know enough. Why didn’t you ask Arcee?” Rodimus tossed out, and instantly regretted saying anything. The anger, he could tolerate.

The flash of _hurt_ on Springer’s features was much harder to endure.

“Because,” the green mech said, and crossed his arms. “I didn’t.”

Rodimus could hear the soft clattering of Springer’s rotors against his arms, in the sudden silence. The thought of reaching out…of offering comfort, or understanding, or hell, even an apology, was terrifying. He was going to say something wrong, he was going to say something stupid, he was going to say something ‘un-Prime-like,’ and he knew it.

He wasn’t saying anything, at all, and that was even worse.

He had to say something.

He was going to.

“Look, Springer, Arcee was….”

Oh, Primus, no, _not_ that.

He tried again, more carefully. “…she was thinking of Cybertron’s future. That’s all.”

“And was that all that you were thinking about, too?” his old friend whipped out, his optics flashing.

“Slag it, Springer, did you think this was _easy_ for me--”

“ _Answer the question._ ” Springer took a step closer, his arms unwinding, the angry clatter of rotors giving his emotions away more than the deep ventilations Rodimus could see him taking as he stalked close enough to touch.

“No!” he almost shouted, defensively, but not withholding any of the truth. Springer was large, and powerful, and intimidating, and Rodimus was, he realized for the first time, large and powerful and intimidating, too. They were the same size.

He wasn’t young, brash, sleek Hot Rod, anymore.

He could meet Springer optic to optic.

And…he could apologize.

“It wasn’t all that I was thinking about, and I’d be a fool if it was,” he continued, “Arcee is beautiful, and intelligent, and amazing, and _yours_ , Springer. She’s yours.” Finally, Rodimus was able to reach out, touching Springer on his elbow-joint hesitantly, and then firmly, when the green mech didn’t pull back. “I was thinking about that the whole time, too.”

Springer stared at him, some emotion written on his face that was too difficult to read.

“I’m sorry,” Rodimus continued. “I’m sorry she got mixed up in this. I really, really am.” He squeezed Springer’s arm, and did not let go of his optics.

After a moment, he felt a large, lime-yellow hand fall on his shoulder, and saw Springer nod. “She made the decision, Rodimus, not you,” he said, finally, returning the squeeze with one of his own, before letting go, balling his hand into a fist, and punching Rodimus’s shoulder less-than-gently. “But you still shouldn’t have asked her first.”

As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t help but grin. “Then you can get me back for that, tonight.”

“What, you’re giving me permission?” Springer smirked, stalking closer in a way that finally forced Rodimus to take a step back in retreat. “Funny, somehow I thought you were supposed to be the one leading this thing.”

“Oh, I am,” Rodimus said, without as much confidence behind the words as he wanted there to be. There was something…intense…in Springer’s optics that he didn’t recognize. “And I will! But we should…ah…maybe….the berth…”

Frag, why was he stumbling over his words, still, like this? He felt completely useless, completely out of control, and…

There was the wall. Right at his back.

And this was how things always had been, in a way. Springer had been older, and tough as steel, and cocky, and the young and confident and desperate-to-learn-everything Hot Rod had followed him. Everywhere. He hadn’t worried about it. He’d been right there, next to Springer, getting into messes and helping get back out of them, again, talking fast and smooth with fingers quick on the draw if things got ugly. They’d been separated in the war, but never for long, and he could still remember the large flash of green diving out of the sky into the thick of the fray, being there when he’d needed it the most.

They’d watched out for each other.

He’d learned everything he’d needed to know about impressing femmes from Springer, and then he’d watched, just slightly behind the game, in the wrong place at the wrong time on the wrong assignment, when Springer had impressed the one femme he’d been gunning for, himself.

He’d known better than to fight it. He’d known that he was still Hot Rod, and that he could still be slick and smooth and fast-talking and quick-drawing just fine, on his own.

For a few years, he had been.

And now, Springer’s optics were on _him_.

All of the times _before_ came rushing back, and, for the first time since being Rodimus, he felt small and young again.

And he had no. Idea. What. To do.

Somehow, Springer did.

He should have known that Springer would. He should have known that Springer would be able to catch him off-guard, like this, taking first one wrist and then deftly dumping Rodimus’s hand off his elbow to grab the other before it could even fall. Both arms were suddenly pinned to the wall, above his head.

He was exposed.

He was exposed, but Springer held him, pinning him there with his optics until he could step close enough to pin him with his body, instead. “Last I checked, you’d only ever been with femmes, Hot Rod.” He whispered, low, leaning in to let his vocalizer vibrate next to Rodimus’s audial. “You have no idea what you’re doing right now, do you.”

He felt the Matrix pulsate, inside him, responding to the tone of the voice. He felt his knees grow weak, and he felt his friend‘s hands tightening on his wrists.

Springer had called him Hot Rod, for the first time since before he’d opened up the Matrix.

Rodimus didn’t realize he’d missed hearing it from his old friend, so much. “Look, I’m a fast learner. But I’m not going to be able to do much, with my wrists both pinned…”

“Yeah, that’s the general idea.” Springer laughed, throatily, still too close to Rodimus’s audial for him to see exactly what was being done. “You said I could get back at you tonight, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to make this _easy_ on you.” It was unnerving and exhilarating at the same time to hear those words… not knowing what his friend would do, not knowing if this was another adventure about to happen. Wasn’t he supposed to be a Prime? Wasn’t he supposed to be sure of himself in every situation, even the unknown?

Wasn’t it un-Prime-ly to be waiting for the touch of nearby lips on his plating, or the sound of _that voice_ in his audial? It had to be un-Prime-ly to want either.

Or both.

A ragged breath escaped him, flowing against Springer’s warm, tense frame, and washing through the barest of spaces that was between them.

Again, the Matrix pulsed.

This time, Rodimus had difficulty handling it. His back struts left the wall, pressing him suddenly into Springer, sending blossoms of sensation through him that felt magnetized directly toward his spark. Like last night, he could feel. He could feel everything.

He was feeling it directly, too, instead of each signal being filtered through the slowness of his processor. The Matrix wanted every touch for itself, taken, _sampled_ , pulled straight through his spark to extract every feeling and emotion. It was like touchinglight.

It felt _good._

He heard Springer gasp, and knew that his old friend was gasping from the sudden heat radiating from Rodimus’s frame.

It felt _really_ good.

The sudden, cold, wet feeling of a tongue burying itself in neck-cabling was a shock against the heat, and it surprised him that it was not an unwelcome one. “Oh, Frag…” he managed, just barely.

“Mrrmph.” Springer replied, working his way up Rodimus’s neck, forcing Rodimus’ spinal struts back against the wall by pressure from his body alone. Unwilling to let his old friend get a complete one-up on him, Rodimus lifted both orange and grey knees up the outside of Springer’s green thighs. The older mech had no choice but to let him, having to concentrate the entirety of his actions on keeping them upright and against the wall…but to Rodimus’s dismay, Springer was hardly at a disadvantage for it. The slightest hitching from green hips kicked him up, higher, and, without meaning to, Rodimus found his thighs spreading around the other mech, his knees working hard to hold on.

His legs were wrapped around Springer.

Springer laughed into his neck cabling, and the vibrations travelled along hydraulic tubing and fuel lines, carrying the rich, dark sound through him. “Got you,” his old friend said.

He’d never had a partner strong enough to hold him aloft against a wall before.

Maybe that was the way mechs differed from femmes.

Springer was hardly through with him, however, and when Rodimus did not try anything else, Springer brought his knee up the inside of Rodimus’s leg until it bumped against his pelvic plating.

The sheer, electric shock from that caused him to gasp. The heat and charge built up the worst around every port and connection socket, where the armor was thinnest, and…Springer had just tapped one of the larger connection sockets he had.

Suddenly worried that Springer was going to do more with that socket, Rodimus tightened his legs around the green mech…but Springer only used the motion to hitch the younger mech up higher. He moved in close, pressing Rodimus into the wall until Rodimus’s thighs were fully spread around him, his joints stretched, taught.

It almost hurt.

“Okay,” Rodimus managed to choke out. “I admit it. You know what you’re doing.”

The other mech pulled away from where his tongue had been delving into the delicate circuitry of Rodimus’s neck, leaving a cold, moist feeling along his jaw-line. He smiled a familiar, dangerous smile…and Rodimus ached for the days when he remembered seeing that smile just before his friend would reveal their next daring, deadly mission. “Think you can keep up?”

He did not give Rodimus a chance to answer, instead sliding the length of his torso down Rodimus’s thighs, allowing them a moment of looseness before pushing forward, suddenly, stretching orange legs fully until his waist just touched Rodimus’s pelvic armor.

Again, a shock ran through him.

This time, his engine let out an unbidden _rev_ for more.

Springer’s engine matched that rev, and pressed him fully back along the wall, tugging him up by his wrists. He started slowly, pushing Rodimus’s legs to their stretching point and then receding, repeating the motion again. Each time he felt pressure against the thin armor of his pelvic plating, the matrix sparked, enticing him to move his body deeper into the rocking waves. Their speed increased, and steadily every movement dragged his pelvic armor scintillatingly over Springer’s rough, ribbed midsection.

A wave of pleasure rippled through him.

He let his head roll back, and let his engine _purr._

“Not bad…” Springer started, barely managing to tear himself away from his effort long enough to speak the words, but Rodimus did not give him the chance. He leaned up, suddenly, and their lips met.

Springer was _his_ captive, now.

Springer was _his_ captive, held in check by the emotions that rolled through them, pulled in by the Matrix as unswervingly as Rodimus was. Their speed increased. Rodimus felt his chest-plates sliding open.

Springer, he knew, could not help but comply.

This time, he kept his optics closed, and let the final, agonizingly sweet wash of heat and lightning tear straight through his spark as they pressed together.

It felt right.

It felt like echoes of forgotten adventures, bold escapades, making mistakes and wringing success out of failure on the fly. It felt like suddenly dropping into bars filled with angry aliens, and coming home covered in seven different types of slime. It felt like knowing someone had his back.

It felt like Springer.

It felt like being young, again.

And it felt, finally, like longing and like pain, like bottled-up emotions as, no matter what you did, the one you wanted never noticed.

That…couldn’t have been Springer, could it?

That last bit didn’t make sense…

But it was fading.

It was fading, and he was falling, and it was only the sudden jarring rebound off the floor that pulled him out of it, at all, gasping, where he’d collapsed on top of a limp pile of green.

Strong, rough arms wrapped around him, suddenly, gripping tight as panels shifted underneath, and Springer’s spark chamber snapped closed, a sharp sound in the middle of them trying to get enough air through their engines.

Springer was shaking.

“What…the pit…was _that?_ ” His friend growled, before his engine sputtered and he devolved to coughing, instead. The green arms tightened, and Springer’s optics slowly shuttered closed. “That wasn’t…that wasn’t me. That wasn’t me, and that _definitely_ wasn’t you…” He managed, softer this time, one hand stroking over the small of Rodimus’s back even as the other clung to him.

Rodimus did not know what to think.

He’d thought tonight….

He’d thought tonight would go so differently than this.

He’d thought they’d just do what they had to do, just…opening their panels, and getting it over with. Doing their duty, for Cybertron, not…

Springer should not have been that _good._

Should not have felt that…good.

“Well, it’s different than with femmes, that’s for sure…”

“Only because you haven’t been with the right kind of femme, before.” Springer countered, finally chuckling, a little, as he caught his breath. “Not…really much of a difference…when you get down to it.”

“N….no. But you were gr--” He started, and then cut himself off, realizing that telling Springer how ‘great’ he’d just been when Springer belonged with Arcee and when he _wanted_ Arcee was just going to make everything way too complicated. It was even harder, the way Springer was holding him.

Like he didn’t want to let go.

And Primus, Rodimus didn’t _want_ to be let go. He’d already spent one night alone, after this. A second night, with the way his spark was feeling right now, was going to be brutal.

“Good.” Springer commented, the hand that was slowly stroking Rodimus finally stilling. “You didn’t say it. You…shouldn’t say it. Not with three more nights of this left. Not with Arcee…” he trailed off, but did not unshutter his optics. “I should get back to Arcee.”

Now, it was Rodimus’s turn to clutch onto Springer, even if he hadn’t meant to do it quite so suddenly. A single blue optic finally opened, glancing down, watching him, and then closing again, defeated. Springer rolled over, and Rodimus lost his grip.

“Springer…” he started to say, before a lime-yellow hand rose up and silenced him.

“Don’t.” His old friend stood, gingerly, repeating the words that Arcee had said the night before. This time, however, Rodimus would never have guessed what came after them. “If you say anything else, I’ll want to stay.”

“You should stay,” Rodimus replied, confused, not really wanting Springer to go. “We can talk about old times, and make new plans, and…heck. I need you, Springer.”

“No,” Springer shivered, and opened his optics to look down at Rod. “…that ship launched, a long time ago.”

“That ship…?” Rodimus began, longing for things to be the way they used to be, longing for the complexity of this ritual to be over, longing for Springer to be his close, close friend once more..

…and finding his longing met and matched, unexpectedly, by intense emotions in the part of Springer’s spark he’d touched.

The part that had watched him grow up, and trained him, and learned with him, and _wanted_ him…

And Rodimus had never known.

Had never known, until it was too late.

“Frag.” Springer said, swearing underneath his breath, aware of exactly when Rodimus had figured it out. “Frag!” He said again, louder, and kicked at the wall, denting the deep purple paneling with his powerful pedes. “Frag.” He said, a final time, looking at where Rodimus still rested on the floor, his optics drifting over the body that the new Prime was still trying desperately to get used to being in.

Then, he turned, and headed out the door.

Rodimus Prime did nothing to try and stop him.

There was nothing, now, that he could do.

He was alone.

And he was starting to realize that maybe that fact, if nothing else, was why the Matrix nestled in him, even now.

Rodimus lay back, not bothering to make it to the berth, not really wanting to do _anything_ right now. As he lay, the warmth of the Matrix washed over him, blanketing him, comforting him in whatever way it knew how. He basked within its glow, feeling its memories distantly plucking at his senses, feeling it feed pleasure into him, still satisfied. He needed the distraction.

He needed the company.

He needed something to remind him of his duties, and his job.

And he needed, desperately, some way to not keep track of the tiny, new part of his spark that was leaving down the corridors, retreating, its old longing stamped out and drenched.

There were four days left, still.

He hoped, for everybody’s sake, that there were no other surprises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know when you sit down to write something, and it turns out completely different than you expect, that something else must have been on your mind for that day.
> 
> My goal, here, really, was just to not make Springer boring. I don't know how he's written by the rest of fandom, and I havn't seen him RPed or discussed in depth. Even after seeing the entirety of Season 3, when asked to put a few words of personality into Springer I felt like I was at a loss.
> 
> Who was he?
> 
> What did he do?
> 
> What did he want?
> 
> In writing this, in a way, I had the chance to find out. 
> 
> Slowly, Rodimus is beginning to realize there was more to his team than he thought. Slowly, he's also beginning to realize exactly why that's _part_ of this ritual, and half of the reason it's important.
> 
> He'll just have to see what's coming, next.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Blurr's chapter.
> 
> It is actually completely safe!

Blurr, he’d found, had been a welcome distraction from having to deal with either Springer or Arcee the next day.

He’d been in the lobby when Rodimus had come down, and he’d stayed around him, talking about various routes that could be cleared once they reached the outskirts of Iacon. The blue mech had been more knowledgeable than Rodimus had previously given him credit for, dropping important facts without taking a breath, going on and on and on about what every single team was doing, why they were doing it, who was on it, and how long they were planning to take. For the first time, Rodimus had been grateful for the unceasing chatter, and he’d been more than happy to hear a complete, accurate picture of the state of the populace given to him over the course of one day.

He wouldn’t have known it otherwise.

He’d never thought he’d _need_ to know every Autobot by name, rank, and occupation, but then he’d never really expected to be named the next Prime.

Without Blurr, he wouldn’t have even known where to begin.

Rodimus suspected that it was a factor of his over-clocking. Blurr processed things too quickly, and moved from one mech to the next like a social butterfly in double-time. He had, in a way, the _patience_ to get to know everybody, because the days must have seemed twice as long, to him. Blurr had time to kill.

He’d murdered it, ruthlessly, so many times that Rodimus was sure ‘time’ kept its distance from Blurr, and Blurr seemed happy enough with that.

Blurr always seemed happy.

Sometimes Rodimus had wondered what it must have been like living in the world that the blue racecar occupied. He’d tried to imagine how difficult it would be to try to talk to anyone, when it must have seemed like every sentence they uttered took forever to say. Did lasers shoot past him more slowly? Did cars driving on the road seem like they were standing still?

He’d probably have gone insane living with that kind of a glitch, but Blurr had owned it. It was not a handicap for him.

Thinking on it had given Rodimus the distraction that he’d needed, anyway. When he was trying to memorize facts that his audials were still trying to process, he wasn’t thinking about last night. He didn’t have room to think on anything except what Blurr was saying, at all.

They’d driven out to the edge of the canyon together, to look at the launching point for the struts of the new bridge. It had been good, too, to feel the smooth, metal highways of Cybertron beneath his wheels again, even if the odd motions of the trailer had taken plenty of getting used to as they maneuvered around centuries-worth of debris. Blurr didn’t seem to mind.

Rodimus still loved to drive fast, after all, every time there was an open stretch of road. They were nowhere near evenly matched, but despite the added bulk that he’d acquired, his new engines were at least upgraded to compensate.

He had more power, now.

That felt pretty good.

It was something to concentrate on, and it was something to concentrate on very, very far away from Shockwave’s tower. Springer and Arcee were still there.

Now, he wasn’t.

There was even a makeshift camp set up at the new bridge site, and Ultra Magnus had met up with them to show them around, impressing Rodimus with how much had already been done in such a short time, now that they had eager hands to work on it and plenty of energon from Earth. It was more than Shockwave could have done, at least.

Shockwave had never had this sort of mech-power, though, even with his army of drones. They’d needed fuel, and there wasn’t enough of that left on Cybertron. The decepticons who’d stayed hadn’t had much of anything at all.

It was funny to learn that, now that the war was over. It was funny to realize that the enemy had always been in the same dire straits as the Autobots, and had always been just a few days supply of Energon away from total defeat. It was funny, to think of Shockwave holing himself up inside the tower, powering down into stasis for cycles at a time so that he’d have reserves to transfer the archives when he awoke.

It was funny, in that way that wasn’t really funny at all.

He transformed, from where he had been driving along the canyon’s edge, and pulled a chunk of duracrete out from his bumper where it had lodged. The debris was littered everywhere. Sometimes it got hard to see past it, or remember that there was a Cybertron underneath that could have ever looked good. Shockwave hadn’t managed to find it after several million years, so how could they?

Frustrated, he threw the rubble off the edge of the great canyon, and tracked its arc into the void as long as he could.

Perplexed, Blurr looked over, watching him for just a moment before he flickered, and re-appeared with five more rocks.

Rodimus smiled, and for a bit they’d just tossed chunks of stone and metal off the edge, clearing away the debris, preparing the ancient roads along the canyon for the restoration of Cybertron.

Blurr remained completely quiet.

Rodimus appreciated that.

When they’d gone far enough from the encampment, he stopped, and watched his inner timer cycle down to zero.

Back on earth, it would have been the evening.

Back on earth, he’d have been heading with Daniel back to Autobot city, where they would close up for the night. Sometimes Carly would tell stories, after Spike cooked dinner. Sometimes they’d put a movie on.

Sometimes he’d walk the perimeter with Springer, or Ultra Magnus, or Kup, and make sure that everything was safe and still defensible in case the ‘cons attacked.

It seemed so simple, now.

Cybertron was what had become complex.

Earth had been home to Hot Rod: a bright young planet full of excitement for a bright young mech. Rodimus had been handed this cold, dark lump of metal instead.

Defeated, he sat down, and let his legs kick off over the edge of the cliff-side.

Perplexed, Blurr stopped grabbing rocks, and joined him. “Is everything alright? I noticed that you stopped, and since you stopped it didn’t seem right that I should keep on going, but it’s sort of impossible to keep going if I cannot tell you want to or not, and it is always difficult to tell with you. The day is over, and we could be heading back now, but you’re stopped, and I’m just wondering if you would like me to stop, or if you’d like me to keep going, too…?”

Rodimus patted the ground next to him in reply.

Understanding, Blurr nodded quickly, and deposited himself next to Rodimus with a ‘whump.’ The cliff side shuddered for a moment, and was still.

“Careful, careful.” Rodimus grimmaced, glancing over to the swift blue bot. “You wouldn’t want the edges to collapse beneath us, would you?”

“No, sir, I definitely wouldn’t want that, Rod sir, that would be very bad indeed.”

Especially if they somehow managed to _survive._

And, wait a minute. Rod sir?

That…actually didn’t sound so bad. It kind of reminded him of being Hot Rod, again.

“We’ve got some time before anyone will expect us to be back.” He said, thinking quietly, feeling almost…at peace, out here, away from everything. He didn’t want it to end, yet.

It didn’t really have to.

The only appointment he had for the evening was already out here, sitting next to him. He could think of far worse places to be.

Back in Shockwave’s tower was one of them.

“Its hard getting used to being back here, isn’t it.” Blurr started, and, surprised at something so introspective coming out of Blurr, Rodimus looked over to see what happened next. “I mean, on Earth, I always knew when it was time to stop work, and when it was time to start work, and when it was going to be morning and when it was going to be night, and their sun kept turning and turning and turning and you could tell, just from that, what you were supposed to do. You knew when it was going to be spring, summer, winter, or fall, because they always came in order, and they always lasted just so long, and you could only miss them if you really really tried because it’s difficult to miss when your tires are slipping around on ice. Now, we only have our clocks to tell us, and I don’t know about your clock telling you, but I don’t trust my clock to be telling me because most of the time my clock is wrong.”

“Did you ever try to get that looked at?” Rodimus wondered, out loud.

"Oh yes, Rod sir, a very long time ago, sir." Blurr continued, in a way that made Rodimus feel like he was just punctuation in the run-on sentence that had become Blurr’s life.  "The medics said it was hard-wired like it was, stuck, not going anywhere anytime soon, and probably had been that was since my construction. If the clock's controlling every part of a transformer, and my clock is broken, then technically every part of me is broken, too.  But the clocks still working, you see, it’s just working faster, and that means everyone is on a different time than I am, and going at a different pace than me, but since its always been this way, I’ve already compensated so that I go the pace that you see, now.  Slowing it down would slow me down, and slowing me down would cause other parts of me to not be working right, and having other parts not working right could lead to catastrophe, catastrophe, catastrophe!" It was obvious that Blurr had a difficult time sitting still, but there were still enough chunks of rubble nearby that his hands had found something to do. Rocks sailed off the cliff’s edge, one by one for each ‘catastrophe,’ every throw straight and true.

“So you’re stuck like that,” he added, after he was sure that Blurr was done.

“I am stuck being Blurr, but I’ve always been Blurr, so there’s nothing to worry about for me.” He grinned, but not at Rodimus, looking out at some invisible point on the far rim of the canyon where the spires of Iacon could just vaguely be seen. “Nobody’s as fast as me. Nobody’s got my same talents. Nobody can keep up the pace that I can, and…” The grin, it seemed, turned a little jaded. “Nobody ever will.”

“It can get a little lonely at the top, huh?” Rodimus asked, understanding the concept far more than he would have liked to.

“Only if nobody races with me,” the blue car answered, looking back. “Only if nobody talks with me, or jokes with me, or appreciates me. That happens, sometimes, and when it’s happening usually someone is telling me to slow down, or telling me to stop talking, or getting that same frustrated look as if I’m too stupid to understand it. It hurts, still, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, and I don‘t know what to tell them when it hurts like that. It hurts to be so fast, and to be treated like I’m slow.”

Rodimus, for once, could not even imagine what that must have been like.

“When I’m treated like I’m slow, it’s harder for me, because then people talk slower or simpler and it’s like having to try and understand things double-slow. I can’t do that,” Blurr laughed, “I have to understand things fast. Sometimes, when it seems like I’m being slow, it’s just because I overshot the finish line and have to circle around again. I’ll catch on eventually, and my ‘eventually’ isn’t nearly so long for anybody but me. That doesn’t seem so bad.”

It didn’t seem that bad to Rodimus, either.

It still made him feel guilty, though. He’d treated Blurr like he wasn’t capable of understanding anything complicated more than once, and never had thought about it one way or another.

That, he realized, was wrong.

It wasn’t that Blurr didn’t understand things when they were complicated…it was that complicated things took too long to tell to Blurr. By the time he got to the end of the instructions, the beginning of them must have seemed like forever ago. It would be like trying to remember double the steps.

“Well, I’ll be careful with that, next time.” He said, handing an extra rock over to Blurr. “Maybe I can send you transmissions, instead. Think that might help?”

“Oh, definitely, that would be the best. I can read those faster, anyway, and if I can read those faster, I can already be getting to work on the important parts instead of waiting to figure them out. I really, really want to be a better asset, and I’m good at it, I really am. I’m good at lots of things. I didn’t think you’d pick me, either, when you were figuring this ritual thing out, but then you did, and I’ve never been picked for anything that’s this important. You gave me a chance, and I’m not going to let you down, Rod sir, not now, and not while you‘re Prime, ever.”

This was enough to stun Rodimus into total silence.

Blurr had…been happy to be picked?

He’d actually… _wanted_ …to be chosen for this?

It definitely seemed that way.

He hadn’t really seemed sad about it, before, either, but with Blurr it always had been hard to tell. If he ever got sad, he hid it. He hid it, or he just went through it faster…

…but Rodimus guessed that going through it faster didn’t stop it from hurting just as deep.

“Look, Blurr, I’m glad that I was able to pick you. I think you’ve got a lot going for you that Cybertron will need.” More, even, than he’d been aware of when he’d picked the sleek blue racer.

“See, this is why you’re going to be an excellent leader.” Blurr grinned, taking another rock from Rodimus’s hand. “You look at more than what is there.”

Did…Blurr really mean that?

It was kind of nice to hear.

Especially since, at the time, he’d mostly chosen Blurr because Blurr _was_ there. The blue car wasn’t unattractive, and he had talents no one else possessed, and he’d been instrumental in the war, and that had really been all Rodimus had needed.

He hadn’t been expecting…this.

He hadn’t realized just what Blurr had to endure, and just how amazing it was that Blurr had kept a positive attitude despite it. He hadn’t realized how that kind of perseverance could become an even more impressive strength than speed.

He hadn’t realized that Blurr might have needed someone to recognize that, as much as Cybertron needed those skills he had to offer.

Now that he had, he couldn’t have been more satisfied with his choice.

“It’s not that I’m looking at more than what is there,” he said, after a moment, contemplating the deep blue of the sky, with Unicronian comets still casually falling through it, watching the arc of Blurr’s stone as it mimicked the same effect over the great purple chasm, a tiny streak of light against the dark. “It’s that I’m am willing to believe there’s more that might be.”

Blurr reached towards him, for another stone, and met Rodimus’s empty fingers, instead.

They were a long way away from camp. They were a long way away from Shockwave’s tower. They were alone.

He couldn’t think of a better place, or a better time to share himself with Blurr.

The racecar didn’t seem to mind it, either. Blurr laughed, and leaned in close. “Then keep your optics open,” he said, a mischievous sparkle in his own. “Because you won’t want to miss a thing.”

Rodimus didn’t.

Blurr always had been, after all, a little hard to see at full speed.

…

Frag, tonight was going to leave him hurting, wasn’t it.

Ah, well.

After this, there were only three days left.

And this, he decided, as he felt Blurr’s hands moving deftly over his body to begin, could have been a hell of a lot worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.
> 
> When I first set out to write this, Blurr wasn't going to get a chapter at all. I didn't really know what to do with him, I didn't really feel comfortable with writing him, and, originally, as Rodimus says, him being on the team was mostly because he was _there._ He was a Season 3 bot who was one of the backbones of Rod's crew.
> 
> As I wrote, however, I felt like there needed to be a sort of intermission, to keep all the chapters from just being strictly porn (which they didn't end up being anyhow, but this was still my logic.) Since the Springer chapter had turned out surprisingly, I decided to give Blurr a chance and to give Rodimus a break, and...
> 
> ...this is what happened. 
> 
> It got introspective.
> 
> There will be another chapter or two before the porn returns, but then there will be lots of it, so stay tuned if that is your thing! 
> 
> The Seventh Night is coming.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is another clean one. Only vague mentions of what Rodimus did with Blurr.

It had gotten a hell of a lot worse, instantly.

There’d been an accident transporting some of the energon to the edge of the bridge site before the night had even had time to mature. The resulting explosion had been bright enough to see from the cliff’s edge where he’d been staying with Blurr, effectively interrupting the recharge that he hadn’t quite fallen into, yet. He’d been lucky, in a way, that Blurr had been so fast, or it would have interrupted the ritual, too.

As it was, the two of them were already heading back toward the encampment before he’d gotten the communications from Ultra Magnus about what had gone wrong, and who was heading where to help out.

They’d needed almost everybody.

Energon had always been unstable, and with the unfortunate state of the roads it had only taken a single, too-hard bounce to knock a cube off of the transportation shuttle. The buildings closest to the blast were missing doors and windows and any balconies that hadn’t been bolted down securely. The street itself was scorched, chunks of rubble making approach difficult, most of it buckled and warped from the head of the explosion. Pieces of Hardwire, the shuttle’s pilot, were strewn everywhere, and the bodies of the mechs who’d been escorting him were found, barely alive, a few blocks away.

Most of them were missing limbs.

Springer had already called the med-team in, however, by the time that Rodimus arrived. With plenty of hands to help stabilize the wounded, he’d ended up spending most of the night with Grapple, instead, listening to the architect worry about the structural stability of the buildings nearby. It was his job, in a way, as leader, to listen to this sort of thing. Grapple wanted him to spare some mechs to add in extra support beans, fearing that without the help, the mangled buildings nearest the blast were going to collapse on top of an already horrifying mess.

Rodimus thought about letting them.

The roadway itself was already slagged, and the Autobots that had been called in were busy at salvaging what was still useful equipment from the shuttlecraft or giving care to the survivors. The buildings were empty, and old, like everything on Cybertron. Rodimus just didn’t care if they collapsed.

The road was the real problem.

It was the most direct, and widest, roadway heading from Shockwave’s tower to the best building site to bridge across the canyon. Even if there were other ways to get there, they weren’t as secure, or well-preserved, or sturdy enough to handle all the construction vehicles that would need to pass.

They _needed_ the main road, slagged as it was.

That should have been the focus, not the buildings.

But if the buildings fell onto the road, that wasn’t helping anybody.

“Demolish them,” he said, finally, rubbing his helmet as if that would help to wash away the fatigue from his lack of recharge. “Take them down, do it quickly, and don’t let them fall onto the road. If they fall onto other buildings, that’s alright, just so long as _those_ buildings don’t fall into the road.”

“You don’t want to save them?” Grapple asked, glancing over to his friend, Hoist.

“Not really,” Rodimus sighed, and let his arm finally drop. Rubbing his helm wasn’t doing any good, when it was mostly his spark that ached. “We just don’t have enough mechs to populate all of Cybertron, anymore. The only thing that I care about preserving right now is Iacon, and this road is the only thing that’s getting us there. Keep the buildings off the road, and help us get to Iacon. When we’re there, we’ll save as many buildings as we can.”

This wasn’t perfect…but Hoist nodded, after a time. “Alright, Rodimus. I understand. We’ll get them taken care of, tonight, before they become any more of a threat.”

“Thanks, you two,” he said, trying not to sound as tired as he felt. How he felt didn’t really matter. _Nobody_ here could have gotten that much sleep.

“Of course.”

The pair of them were already heading onward, pointing at various corners of the building and arguing amongst themselves. Not too far off, the carcass of the shuttle loomed, the metal of its trailer twisted into strange and horrifying shapes.

He glanced down to the road.

All across it, there was rubble.

There’d been rubble since they returned, some older than the war and covered in dust, some shaken free in the earthquakes caused by Unicron’s massive gravitation, some from natural aging as the buildings around it slowly started falling down.

Earlier, he’d been tossing those same chunks off of the cliff-side with Blurr.

Now, he realized, they’d need to do the same with these streets.

An accident like this couldn’t happen again.

He hadn’t even realized it was a problem that could happen in the first place.

He should have known.

He should have known, earlier, when he was cruising this same roadway with the racecar, dodging around the torn up duracrete. Then, he’d thought it was a game.

Now, he saw it as a liability.

A leader couldn’t do that sort of thing.

A leader had to think.

With a grunt he hefted up one of the larger chunks, and threw it, bodily, off the edge of the highway. It sailed, clear, heavy, and slow, right down into a window on the other side.

Rodimus winced at the loud, obnoxious crackling of glass, but didn’t really care about it, reaching for another piece to throw.

He threw it.

Then another.

Then another, launching through the air like missiles, raining down like war, satisfying his anger at himself with the crash of every impact.

It was clearing the road, at least.

That needed to be done.

When he looked up, Blurr was standing there with another rock for him to throw.

When he looked up again, Springer had joined him.

For a while, they through rubble in silence.

The ache in his spark had dimmed with them nearby, with them working together. He’d caught a flash of pink, as well, and seen Arcee, sweeping away the dust and soot, clearing away the layers of years that had settled on the roadway which made it slick and harder to find traction.

They stood, together, when Grapple and Hook finally brought the buildings down.

Rodimus bore the rumbling and noise as best he could, watching, his hands balling into fists…

…and finding pink and lime-yellow fingers already clasped within his own.

He’d looked up, and Arcee had smiled at him. So had Springer. So had Blurr.

Then Ultra Magnus had lumbered up behind him, and both hands vanished as Rodimus turned. The old commander’s thick, shielded optics looked him up and down, then glanced to the blue racecar.

“Did you two manage to…?” he started, the question apparent.

“Yeah, we’re good,” Rodimus nodded. If there was one thing that Blurr always excelled at, it was being the fastest. “Everything is on schedule, except for the bridge.”

“It will get back on schedule, soon enough,” Ultra Magnus affirmed, looking to where the teams of Autobots were wrapping up, packing equipment into their cabs for the short drive to the encampment.

“Is everyone…alright?” Arcee asked, crossing behind Rodimus to take her usual place at Springer’s side.

“Everyone will be, except for Hardwire,” Rodimus answered, having heard the reports. “But this is still the last thing that should have gone wrong.”

Springer kicked at a lingering piece of rubble, and put his arm around Arcee’s side. “No one was expecting this, Rod,” he said, after a moment. “There’s nothing that could have been done.”

There was only silence, then, and the distant sound of engines driving away.

“I should have noticed--” Rodimus began, and stopped, short, as Blurr tossed a helm-sized rock at him.

He caught it.

“It wasn’t just you out here driving on these roads today, you know. If I recall correctly I was out here too, and Ultra Magnus, and Wheelie, and the Protectobots, and Grapple, and Hoist, and…” Suddenly conscious of the looks the blue racecar was getting, Rodimus sent a brief ping to Blurr to tone it down. Amazingly, it worked. “…and lots of other bots, besides. We all could have seen the danger, and we didn’t, and if we didn’t see the danger then the threat was a subtle one, and subtle threats can be disastrous but we all missed it, too. Everybody. Not just Rodimus Prime.”

That…helped.

He wished it could have helped a lot more, though.

“I know,” he said, and tossed the rock off of the roadway, “but now Hardwire is gone, and he went offline while I was in command. That is my responsibility.” With a shudder, he turned and started walking away. “It’s mine, alone. But…thanks. All of you. For coming out and helping tonight.”

Nobody moved to follow him.

In some way, he guessed, they understood.

He’d have their support, always, and he appreciated that, but they’d never be his to fall back on. They’d never be able to comfort him, when something like this had gone wrong. They’d never be able to kiss him on the crest, and tell him it would be alright. There hadn’t been anyone who had been able to, in three night’s time.

There hadn’t ever been, for Optimus.

Maybe, he wondered, that was because it would never _be_ alright.

There’d always be something more to build or some mess to clean up.

There’d always have be someone to make the hard decisions, without considering any one point of view more than any other.

There’d always have to be someone to take responsibility, because it needed to be done.

There’d always have to be a Prime.

Soon, he would have to start acting like one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Being a leader is never easy.
> 
> I mean, you have to talk to Grapple and Hoist. What's up with that?
> 
> This is another chapter I hadn't planned on writing. I just needed something to bridge the gap between what he did with Blurr and what happened with Perceptor, and this came out of my fingers. It is short, but I ended up keeping it in because I really liked how the team dynamics really started to change, here, visibly. Hot Rod isn't as alone as he thinks...
> 
> ...he just doesn't realize it, yet.
> 
> One more tiny establishing chapter to go, then more porn.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Saaaafe this one is saaaafe.  
> Brief mentions of some stuff, but no actual actions.

When he woke up, cycles later, he was back in Shockwave’s tower.

His inner clock said it was the Earth equivalent to sometime in the late afternoon, but there was nothing to compare it to but that. He wanted to recharge more.

On Earth, at least, he’d have had the sunshine to drag him out of his berth.

With great effort, he managed to flip himself over onto his side, his yellow spoiler folding uncomfortably behind him.

It was dark, like it always was. Some ambient glow did filter in from his door-less balcony, but even that unnerved him, just a bit. He’d been in the war too long to like unguarded entryways, and he’d gotten too used to weather when he stayed on Earth.

It had rained a lot, on Earth. He’d learned not to leave his windows down if he parked outside at night, lest the moisture ruin his upholstery. He’d learned what ‘windshield wipers’ were for. He’d learned about snow tires, too.

Here, he didn‘t have to worry about that. It was almost always dry.

In some ways that was nice. In some ways, it was a little freeing to experience open doorways, or to leave his windows down, or to plan for giant shipments without worrying about weather or about Decepticon attacks. It had been nice to sneak away from the encampment to sleep under the sky with Blurr.

It had been nice to have the chance to, anyway. Considering this was his fourth night of the ritual, he had yet to actually ‘sleep’ with anyone _._ Something had always come up, and, really, he couldn’t blame Arcee for wanting to get back to Springer, or Springer for wanting to get back to Arcee. They’d all had reasons for leaving, it was just…

It had been hard on him.

His spark had ached, each time he’d had to fall into recharge alone.

His spark ached, anyhow. It had been hurting since he’d finished up with Blurr, a sharp throbbing that trickled through him like his energon lines had been burnt. That…probably was pretty close to it, he figured. Bots weren’t _built_ to spark-bond this many nights in a row.

Most of the time, spark-bonding didn’t need to happen more than once.

This wasn’t really spark-bonding, though, from what Kup’s diagrams had said. The Matrix, itself, took most of the energy from the connection, keeping that as memories, ideals, promises, dreams, and whatever else its innards were composed of.

Good stuff, he hoped.

It would have been kind of embarrassing, after all, if what the Matrix recorded out of this was that he’d been lousy in the sack.

He couldn’t have been all that bad, anyway, could he?

He was a little naïve about some parts of it, maybe, but not about everything. It was, of course, a little hard to get used to sleeping with mechs when he’d been attracted to femmes his whole life, but he’d done a pretty decent job adjusting, and it hadn’t really been his fault he‘d gone in cold.

He had Springer and Earth to blame for that.

Springer had been attracted to femmes and had passed that on, and…well, most of the Earth couples that he’d seen had been paired off that way.

Most of them.

He’d thought.

It had been difficult to tell.

Either way, he didn’t think that he was doing all that badly. Like Springer had said, there wasn’t much difference, in the end. Plugs still connected into sockets. Touches along seams had always felt good. Sparks all looked the same, without their coverings, and…

He didn’t want to think of that, right now. Just the thought of interfacing again made his circuits feel singed.

It was too early, anyway, even if his Earth-calibrated sensors kept screaming at him that being this dark meant that it felt late. It didn’t really matter how late it ‘felt,’ because it was always dark like this. He’d have to get used to it, sooner or later.

What he _couldn’t_ get used to was the glow of some light, flickering in his room, somewhere.

He didn’t really want to get up to shut it off.

It probably was Arcee’s data-pad, anyhow, and she’d probably realized she’d lost it and activated its homing device. He’d have to give it back to her, sooner or later, and if she was awake enough to send it a homing impulse, then…

He turned over, slowly, and stared blankly at the lit up console in the corner.

It hadn’t been Arcee’s data-pad glowing, after all.

This was something else.

It was, like the rest of the room, purple. A big Decepticon symbol rotated in the center of the screen, suspended against a black and red grid black-ground, creating the effect of pulsating light that had caught his attention.

That…could be a problem.

Wary, he could feel his battle-systems queuing, at the ready. What was this console doing on? Had Shockwave booby-trapped his room at some point?

Wouldn’t it have activated before now, if so?

He didn’t know.

When they’d entered the tower, exhausted, there had been no security systems that had come online against them. There were guns hidden in corners, yes, and cameras monitoring every motion, but no one had been shot at, and nothing had been locked down.

It was like Shockwave had known.

 _What_ he’d known had always been a little bit of a worry to Rodimus, but it wasn’t the sort of worry that he was equipped to handle, considering it wasn’t an immediate threat. He’d told someone else to study it, and let it go.

He had not even thought about it until now, and now it was starting to worry him.

Letting his curiosity get the better of him, he stood up off of Shockwave’s berth.

There was a knock at the door.

Surprised by the timing of it, Rodimus instantly was in a crouch next to the recharge slab, reaching for a blaster that, of course, was not there. He hadn’t been planning on a battle when he’d shut his systems down for the night.

He hadn’t been planning for much other than passing out, at all.

“Who is it?” he called out, straightening up from the floor.

“It’s Perceptor.”

Well. That was…something. He hadn’t seen Perceptor for a few solar cycles, now. “You’re a little early.” He called back, not bothering to disguise the sound of his grin.

“Ah, yes, well…about that,” the scientist’s voice continued, muffled behind the door until Rodimus reached the keypad, and typed in the command to open it. Perceptor looked at him. “This isn’t actually about that at all. May I come in?”

Glancing back toward the still-glowing console, Rodimus shrugged and hit the keypad again to turn on some of the fluorescent purple lights. “I’m free for a few hours. I do have an appointment tonight, though. Later on. With a microscope. You’ll have to be out by then.”

“Oh, I don’t plan on this taking very long at all,” Perceptor offered, cheerfully, stepping inside to take a look around. “In fact I--” The red mech stopped, as if finally noticing what Rodimus had actually said, and couldn’t seem to be able to close his mouth. “Ah,” he finished.

Rodimus let the door close behind him. “So what is it you wanted to see me about, then?”

Staring at him for a long moment, Perceptor looked more than a little flustered. “As….As you know, I have been working on restoring full access to Shockwave’s communications network and space bridge, so that we can keep in contact with Earth.”

“Yeah. You were the one who got the energon through a solar cycle or so back, right?”

“That is correct.” Seemingly pleased that Rodimus had noticed, he straightened up a bit, and broke his gaze to finish looking around. “I took the liberties of working on it after I’d finished distributing the local energon and spark-signature locators. Fortunately for us, Shockwave had not encrypted much of his databases, so I was able to get the space bridge running with minimal effort, even excusing my less-than-adequate hacking skills.”

Those skills, Rodimus suspected, were probably underestimated. On the other hand, it was much better to hear Perceptor _not_ talking about something than to hear Perceptor fail to _stop_ talking about something that Rod wouldn’t even understand.

Then again, after his conversation with Blurr, yesterday, he was a little bit more willing to listen than he’d previously been.

“You did a good job,” he said, after a moment, realizing that Perceptor had paused for a reason.

“Th…thank you, Rodimus,” the red mech replied, obviously not having been expecting praise. “That would normally have been where Optimus told me to get on with it.”

Rodimus laughed. “Well, yeah, Optimus never had the patience for science. He and I have that in common, I think…but at least we’re not in a war, right now. Nothing seems as urgent.”

Even if, sometimes, it still felt like it was.

“Then, in honor of our departed leader, I shall get to the point nevertheless.” Perceptor smiled, finally relaxing around Rod. “Not _all_ of Shockwave’s systems were readily available to me when we arrived. I have been attempting to access parts of the archive restoration project he was working on, without success. A moment ago, I had nearly cracked the files from his laboratory, before it informed me it was rerouting access to a secure system, and locked me out. I was able to trace the download back to here.”

The red mech was staring past Rodimus, now, straight toward the console with the Decepticon screen-saver. That didn’t take the new Prime long to figure out.

“If you want to give it a try from in here, go ahead,” he offered, gesturing toward the purple desk. “By all means. I probably should be going down and seeing what kind of schedule Ultra Magnus made up for today, anyhow. He keeps giving himself twice the hours of everyone else.”

“He does seem to enjoy his job, I’ve noticed,” Perceptor commented, even if he sounded a bit distracted with his own task, heading immediately for the desk. “But I can sympathize. It has been nice to work on something, for once, without the fear that the Decepticons will tear it down. I’ve found it difficult to stop.”

“Then who am I to tell him otherwise?” Rodimus chuckled, and headed for the door.

“You’re Rodimus Prime,” the microscope answered, absent-mindedly hitting upon the very point that made his new life complicated to begin with.

“Yeah,” he sighed, and stepped out into the hall. “I guess I am.”

He didn’t have much of a choice.

He did, however, have a few cycles to waste before he had to do anything _else_ uncomfortable for Cybertron.

Rodimus headed down the hall, and straight through the elevator doors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really love Perceptor.
> 
> He was an interesting choice to make for this story, especially compared to the other Season-three-only bots that show up in the rest of it...but I really felt that Perceptor IN the third season got to see a lot more action, responsibility, and command. In my mind, that had to come from somewhere.
> 
> This scene sets up for what is to come later, and is mostly here for Rodimus to mention again how much he misses Earth, how unfamiliar Cybertron is in comparison, and how strange it is to be staying in an ex-Decepticon base. Also, pain.
> 
> These are, in a way, themes to his ascension.
> 
> Science porn comes next.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey look there's porn again!
> 
> The majority of this is pnp, with a tiny bit of tactile, and mentions of spark. It can be slightly dub-con-y, too, if you squint, since all of this is brought on by the Matrix.

When he returned late in the evening, he found Perceptor still hard at work in Shockwave’s room.

He’d needed the break. Already, he seemed a little better, and his spark was not feeling quite as burnt as it had been before. He was still a little achy, but Springer had managed to slip him a half-full cube of high grade, and Primus had that helped. Rodimus hadn’t needed to ask where the other half had gotten off to.

The look on Springer’s face had said it all.

Still, they’d shared a smile, and he’d punched Springer on the shoulder lightly, and they’d gone their separate ways almost as if nothing had happened.

When he’d seen Arcee a couple minutes later, though, and she had _looked_ at him, he knew too much had changed. Too much had been shared.

Thankfully, as far as he knew, there wouldn’t be any lasting ramifications to occupying his berth tonight with Perceptor. He’d never heard the mech talking about any significant others, or any special occasions, or shared experiences, or _anything_ , and he’d heard Perceptor talking a lot. There was no way that any ‘luggage’ would be accompanying him, so to speak, unless that luggage was filled with chemicals, test tubes, and microchips.

The fact that Perceptor was still in his room, at all, was a testament to that.

Like Ultra Magnus, the scientist never stopped working.

They were _bonded_ to their work.

Making sure to lock the door, Rodimus Prime collapsed onto the berth and watched the microscope still typing away, several connection leads extending from him to the console. The rotating Decepticon symbol had been replaced with an intricate looking set of menus, periodically appearing and disappearing as Perceptor tried to open different files and, according to the little negative-sounding blips, failed.

“How is it going?” he finally asked.

“Not well.” The other mech sighed, and sagged a little. Rodimus did not recall him looking so dejected when he’d seen him earlier. “Shockwave did not encrypt many files in his database, but the ones that he _did_ encrypt he made sure to encrypt well. They have a touch of Soundwave to them, if I might venture a guess.”

“Then I’ll call up Blaster, tomorrow. He might be able to make a dent.” Rodimus lay there, sprawled out, pretending that the other mech in the room with him was not the one he had to sleep with.

That knowledge made it harder to relax.

“I would have called him myself, sir, if the algorithms to this weren’t so complex. They are more like…equations, than encryptions. So far, I’ve already had to enter the probability density formula for the likelihood of electrum’s nuclei decay, and that was just the password for access to his daily agenda! The rest has been extremely difficult.” Perceptor’s hand came to rest over the desk, balling into a fist there. This could not have been easy for him, if he was unraveling this much.

Normally, he only got so flustered over social interactions, not scientific ones.

“Wait just a second.” Rodimus backtracked his thoughts, and sat up on the berth. “You say you unlocked his daily agenda? How far into the future does that go?”

Perceptor paused in what he was doing, the balled hand loosening to return to the keyboard, typing out a few instructions that he supplemented with information from his hardlines. On screen, numerous cells appeared, organized carefully and numbered, each corresponding to a date. “Only about a million years or so. Mostly, it’s filled with plans for relocating the rest of the archives, obtaining energon, and…there were a few meetings with Constructicons scheduled, too. Significant amounts of entries on maintenance. It is not very fascinating or filled with Intelligence data, I’m afraid.”

Well, it had been worth a try.

“The thing is,” Perceptor continued, reaching to pull up a screen that Rodimus had seen him access several times. “The thing is, that somewhere in here Shockwave kept detailed accounts of every change that happened on the face of Cybertron. He recorded every building that went down, every crater that formed from every asteroid, every street that was still serviceable. He had, most importantly, even maintained several storage facilities containing energon and manufacturing equipment. It would be likely enough to return Iacon to full functionality, if it could be found.”

That seemed pretty useful, indeed. Standing up, finally, Rodimus stretched a bit and headed towards Perceptor, watching him try to get through that screen, fail, and try again.

_Unauthorized user detected, access denied._

“I don’t think it likes you,” Rodimus noted, reading through the text.

“That has been half of the problem,” Perceptor agreed. “I cannot access most of the encrypted files without a hardline, but as soon as I plug in, new errors arise.”

_Unauthorized user detected, access denied._

Rodimus could see why that was frustrating. He could, up close like this, watch Perceptor’s hands flying across the functions on the terminal, pulling up access modules that vanished like a puff of smoke when he targeted the file that he wanted. The red mech tried different ones, over and over, rewriting the modules each time and tweaking them, plugging them in, venting a hot blast of air, defeated, when they vanished again. Perceptor’s optics traced the movements, so quickly, so precise, before the shutters over them snapped shut and his hand came down, hard, on the desk.

He shuddered.

“I’m sorry,” he said, after a moment, visibly shaking. “I have been trying all afternoon.”

When he’d been working, there had been almost a steely resolve to him, an assuredness that every motion would be energy not wasted.

Now, Perceptor looked like he’d been kicked.

He wasn’t used to failure, Rodimus realized.

He wasn’t used to being vulnerable in the pursuit of his greatest strengths, and he definitely wasn’t used to having an audience for it.

Slowly, and as gently as he could muster in his new form, Rodimus Prime wrapped his arms around the shivering red mech. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, softly. “It is not going anywhere.”

He could tell that Perceptor’s body tried to stiffen.

He could also tell that the scientist had gone through too many emotions to resist even the tiniest of comforts, now.

When Perceptor sagged against him Rodimus held steady and firm, letting the heat of the red mech’s frustrations dissipate into his armor, spreading like a not-unpleasant warmth.

He hadn’t even realized that he’d leaned in, his arms tightening possessively around the other mech. His lips brushed over Perceptor’s audial, and his hands spread out, flat, against the other’s paneling, surprised to find an almost slender waist.

He’d not expected that, out of Perceptor.

He’d not expected the red metal to be so smooth, unmarred by the wear and tear of concrete roads. He’d not expected legs that were backed with long, flexible treads instead of tires. He’d not expected anything this new, or this delightful.

There were so many little gaps, so many unfamiliar textures, that it was difficult to keep his hands from wanting to explore.

One drew upwards, fingers trailing over the edges of his slide-tray, stroking the polished glass. The other dipped low, driving along the large joints in the scientist’s waist. He felt Perceptor tensing underneath him, frozen in fear, still facing the monitor.

With a dawning sense of horror, he realized he wouldn’t be able to stop, even so.

“Rodimus, I…I…I don’t know what to _do_!” Perceptor’s harried whisper was almost frantic, and filled with uncertainty. His black hands were still, and rigid, the left one still grasping onto the corner of the console’s keyboard, the right one paused in mid air, shaking. The hardline plugs still bound him, tangled over each other and connected to the terminal, feeding him data even now.

It didn’t matter.

The ritual had already begun.

He couldn’t stop it, he knew…but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do something to control it.

“You don’t,” he managed, sucking in a slow intake of air, “have to do anything. I think I’ve got this by now.” His lips had moved away from Perceptor’s audial, and found a new, unexplored surface in Perceptor’s lens.

“But…but…but…” Perceptor started, and was cut off by his own intakes hitching, choking him with a gasp. In Rodimus’s arms, he shivered. “Oh,” at this point, was all he managed to say.

“Relax,” Rodimus commanded, managing to break his hand away from the fragile glass of Perceptor’s magnifying tray. “We can do this, if you relax.” He’d have to turn him, somehow, without breaking his connection cords.

The answer to that was simple.

The hand he’d managed to free instantly descended to the ports on the red mech’s side.

Tonight, he could use these for more than dissipating excess energy.

Tonight, he was going to use them to create it.

He pulled the first plug free.

Instantly, Perceptor whimpered, twitching where he was pressed up against Rod. His aft, for a moment, bucked against Rodimus’s pelvic plating, and he had to bite back a frustrated moan of want. The Matrix wasn’t patient.

Being housed inside of _Rodimus_ didn’t help.

He could hardly get Perceptor’s plug into his own socket fast enough, seating it home into a metal casing that had grown hot and ready. One hand kept Perceptor tight against him, the other was working frantically, pulling his own plug loose and unspooling it toward the microscope, feeling for the lip of the receiving jack with his fingers as his guide.

The tip of one finger dipped over the edge of Perceptor’s socket.

He heard the other whimper, and twitch, and couldn‘t hold back a strangely relieved sigh.

It was warm.

He wouldn’t be plugging into a cold receptor.

Almost tentatively, he held the jack over the socket, letting only the barest of the edges touch. He could stand it like this, he realized, with each tiny connection of raw metal to metal whispering shivers straight into his head, even if he wasn’t sure who he was going to torment more: Perceptor, or the Matrix.

The answer came quickly enough.

The Matrix pulsed inside him, a wave that washed through his senses and took his limbs, sending the plug unwittingly straight into its home.

It didn’t like to be teased, he realized, but he was concentrating on Perceptor too much to care. The connection loop was complete, finally, wires dangling between himself, Perceptor, and Shockwave’s computer. It was bizarre, but it was a means to an ends, a way of conveying the urgent need that the Matrix imparted directly to the mech who was meant to receive it, tonight.

However, it was Rodimus who was in for a shock.

He hadn’t realized how much scientists were equipped for greater throughput.

Perceptor could accept as much data as he could send, and could return it triple-fold. When connected straight into the power of the Matrix, the process was exponential.

“Oh…oh my.” Perceptor murmured, the hand that had been suspended in mid-air finally clutching over Rodimus’s arm. “So this is how that works.”

Rodimus had not been on the _receiving_ end of this, before.

He could feel each wave, magnified, pulsing forward and reflecting back, vibrating within every receptor. It was building so fast…too fast, and Rodimus himself finally whimpered, struggling to keep up with the data exchange. There was just time to turn Perceptor around, dislocating cables, tangling them, meeting the scientist’s still shocked and wide-eyed expression…

Before his panels slid aside.

Connected as he was, he saw it from Perceptor’s view.

He saw himself, larger, more powerful, intimidating, but still Rodimus, still the same Rod that he’d always been. He saw the Matix, glowing, infinite, pulling with a magnetism that he wasn’t strong enough to resist.

He felt his--Perceptor’s--chest-plates open, even as he saw Perceptor look away.

He felt fear, curiosity, and almost unrecognizable desire.

He felt Perceptor’s need to learn, and he felt his hesitation as well.

He felt the Matrix, from the outside looking in, and he felt, with an awe that was not entirely his own, what it was to touch his own spark to another’s.

It felt like his first time.

It was his first time.

It was Perceptor’s.

He’d never really thought about that before. Granted, he’d never really thought about Perceptor. Not like this.

Most mechs didn’t think about Perceptor at all. He was, as Rodimus had noticed, ‘bonded’ to his work. For the most part that satisfied him. He’d thought on interfacing before, from the outside, looking at the ways in which sparks touched, in which their amplitudes met and added and bounced off, leaving each spark different when the process was done. He’d….feared…that difference, worrying that it would make him less effective, less able to work, less intelligent, somehow.

More dependent.

More attached.

He’d shared that point of view with another like-minded individual, too. Just once. He and his colleague had laughed over it together, quietly, one night while they’d collaborated on new, massively important project.

A space bridge.

A means of conveying energon and supplies across vast distances in an instant, erasing the need for inefficient travel through space. They’d been working on it since the academy, trading ideas and theories back and forth, challenging each other to out-think themselves, to push forward.

To achieve.

He’d never felt as accepted as he had that night, talking with someone who understood.

It was the first and only time he’d imagined that maybe there was someone he _could_ bond with, who would not drag him down--Someone who would elevate him, and who he would elevate, in turn. For science. For Cybertron.

For each other.

They’d worked on the project for solar-cycles, re-structuring the known laws of physics, writing papers on the theories of trans-warp space, coming up with equations to explain the velocity of mass in a sub-real environment…

…and then the war had started, and he’d never seen Shockwave again.

Rodimus resurfaced, coughing, tangled in plugs and tangled in Perceptor.

For a moment, he couldn’t focus his optics, and couldn’t understand why his balance gyrators indicated he was lying on the floor. He’d been standing up a second ago, hadn’t he? He’d been watching Perceptor working at the monitor, and then he’d…

The ritual.

So why had it felt like he’d just been in a laboratory, somewhere, studying…

_User identity acknowledged. Access granted._

“He remembered.” The voice sounded distant to Rodimus, but he knew whose it was. Perceptor was curled up on him, and around him, and generally over most of him, and he sounded as exhausted as Rodimus felt.

Exhausted, and aching more than he wanted to realize.

Primus, this hurt.

It was only with great effort that he managed to shift his chest-plates closed, and he lay there, wondering where the other voice had come from and what it was granting him access to.

He didn’t want to move.

He didn’t know that he’d be able to manage it, even if he _had_ wanted to move.

 _This file is password protected,_ the voice said in his head.

“Not if I have something to say about it.” Perceptor whispered, and clutched onto the top of Rodimus’s chest-plate.

He was in his room. He was with Perceptor. He was…still connected to Perceptor, and to Shockwave’s console, as well.

He was connected to what was left of Shockwave.

“It’s alright,” Perceptor sighed, shifting on top of him, catching his worries through the ghost of their hardline. “It’s just his memories. His notes. They can’t hurt you, and…I’m pretty certain that they can’t affect the Matrix, either. The Matrix, on the other hand…” Perceptor reached out, and grabbed one of the connections that had slipped, replugging it back into his side just as Rodimus’s optics came back into focus. “…it seems to have been the key which let us in.”

“Oh,” Rodimus managed, overwhelmed by the wash of signals from Perceptor’s movements that were still coming in through their connected ports. The sensations were too much for him, layered on top of the slow smouldering of his exhausted spark.

“I don’t know if it matters, though,” Perceptor commented, sadly, already focused on his work as if he hadn’t just withstood his first time interfacing. “I still don’t have the password.”

Distantly, Rodimus could see the screen in his mind, layered on top of his HUD. Half of the data was flowing through Perceptor, the other half straight to him from his own connection to the monitor. Everything felt a bit like a blur, to him.

He was still in pain.

He still kept thinking of that laboratory…

“Space Bridges,” he murmured, and reached up to touch Perceptor’s faceplates.

“Hm?” The scientist glanced down to him, distracted, but still paying attention.

“You use…Space Bridges…to transport something that’s important. Anywhere.”   He could remember the lab clearly, and he could remember Shockwave, his antennae perked forward in interest. “Anywhere safe.”

For a moment, Perceptor only stared at him, confused. “You…saw that?”

“The Matrix did,” Rodimus answered, slowly starting to understand why. “It read you, and it read this computer, because we were attached to it. And it knows what you need…”

He could feel the gears click into place through their connection, and he watched Perceptor’s optics deepen their color in delight. “Shockwave’s supplies…he sent them through Space Bridges. So he could gain access to them, anytime…”

“Or so someone could gain access to them, when it was time.” Rodimus managed a smile. “Does that help?”

“Oh, yes, it absolutely helps!” Perceptor exclaimed, and Rodimus felt him writing out password modules in his mind.

After a moment, he could hear it, too.

_Password accepted. Full access granted._

He couldn’t stop Perceptor from standing up, even as it pulled the interface plug directly from his socket. He winced, but didn’t try to move.

“We’ve done it!” The red mech smiled down at him, relieved in a way that was infectious even through the agony. “I should be able to target the right coordinates through the Space Bridge Nexus tomorrow, if I can decipher the rest of this tonight.” His fingers were already flying over the keyboard, once again, but Rodimus stayed still.

He was fine down here, not moving, on the floor.

“You don’t have to work all night, you know,” he offered to the scientist…

…but Perceptor had already begun transferring files to Arcee’s data-pad.   Rodimus hadn’t even noticed when he’d grabbed it.

“I know.” Perceptor knelt, finally, reaching out a hand for Rodimus. “But it’s what makes me happy, more than anything else.”

Rodimus stared at the hand for a very, very long time.

It felt like a long time, at least.

Then he reached out and took it, letting Perceptor untangle him from cables and help him to his feet.

“I will have to consider interfacing, further.” The red mech said, carefully winding all his connections back into every socket, letting the majority of Shockwave’s files download. “But I think just once was more than satisfactory, to me--”

Perceptor cut off, but Rodimus already knew how he would finish it.

“At least until there’s someone you can trust?” he offered, softly.

“No, not that.” Perceptor replied, looking away. “I trusted you, after all, and you did not harm me. I believe…” He trailed off, and shook his head, and then glanced back up to Rodimus Prime. “I believe I’m just content with waiting until there’s somebody that’s right. Maybe, with the war over…I can have hope, again.”

“I’d like that,” Rodimus manged, even offering a grin. “Maybe it will make this experience less awkward.”

“I don’t believe _anything_ could have done that.” Reaching out, Perceptor disconnected Arcee’s data-pad, and glanced toward the door. “You…will be alright tonight, Rodimus?” he asked.

“What, me? Oh, yeah. Of course,” Rodimus lied.

“Then I should be going. There’s a lot here to dissect.”

“You have my leave to work on that, for as long as you see fit.”

Perceptor looked up at him, at that, optics shining. “Thank you, Rodimus. I believe working on this will make me very satisfied, indeed.”

“Then go ahead.” Rodimus smiled, and sat back on his berth. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

He hoped.

“Yes, sir.” Perceptor smiled, back, and hurried from the room.

Unable to bear it, any longer, Rodimus felt back against the berth, and just tried not to whimper.

This had long-stopped being fun, and tonight had proved he had no control over it, anyway.

There was at least tomorrow left to endure, and…how.

 _How_.

Would he ever survive Ultra Magnus?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.
> 
> When I first thought about writing Percy x Rodimus, I'd imagined something a little crackier, and a bit more humorous. When the chapter got written with the Shockwave tie-in, however, it ended up taking on a much more serious tone. 
> 
> Perceptor, it always seemed to me, was a mech oblivious to anything but his current task. He had his comfort zones, and could excel at anything within those zones, but when taken outside of them becomes easily flustered and eager to get back to happy, safe, science times.
> 
> Thus, when finally faced with having to interface...he observes it, documents it, and immediately jumps back into his work when it is over. 
> 
> I was also happy to _get_ to bring Shockwave up, here, since his tower is an ever-present force within the story. Its the only place on Cybertron that's really habitable right now, which forces the Autobots to rely on technology built by a Decepticon. I can only imagine how that affects even the simplest daily activity.
> 
> I also like to imagine that secretly, Shockwave didn't care who ended up restoring Cybertron. He left almost everything accessible so that, in case of his untimely demise, someone else could carry on.
> 
> Someone worthy, of course, which is why this part was difficult...
> 
> ...but Perceptor prevails!
> 
> Night six is next.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No porn here.
> 
> Vaguely graphic self-inflicted violence, though.

He didn’t get out of bed, the next day.

The whole of him was much too hot.

Heat was radiating off of his armor and creeping out from under it. His cooling fans were running full blast, but even they were having difficulty keeping up. Despite the work they did to cycle air in through his engine, their constant running motors were actually starting to overheat and further contributing to the problem. He didn’t know how long his coolant was going to hold out like this.

He really didn’t want to find out.

It was like the after-effects of a virus, without the other malfunctions that normally came with. Every system was running correctly, they were just running too much.

Too hot, like they’d been left running for weeks already.

When Perceptor had entered in the morning, exhausted but triumphant, he’d taken one look at Rodimus and offered to go fetch First Aid.

Rodimus had refused.

He’d already known exactly what the source of the problem was, even if he didn’t know the reason for it yet. It was obvious that this had something to do with the Matrix, and he’d promised…he’d _promised_ not to get any other mechs involved in this. He didn’t want to have to explain the ritual to their medic.

He _couldn’t_ explain.

Not for himself, and not for his team.

He definitely couldn’t explain it after spending the night with Perceptor because he knew the scientist would shoulder the blame, and it wasn’t Perceptor’s fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault.

It was just the Matrix.

The worst of the heat was centered there, around his spark, as if the fragging artifact was feeding him extra energy, keeping his systems running at their peak. None of the voltages it supplied were past his tolerances, but all of them sat just underneath, strafing the line, burning him slowly without ever moving past a simmer.

He couldn’t figure out why it was doing this.

He just wanted it to end.

It wasn’t ending, though, and he had work to do. He’d had Perceptor bring him his reports, and then he’d ordered the scientist to get some recharge. He knew Perceptor hadn’t gotten any, last night.

Rodimus hadn’t slept that well, himself.

He stared at the reports for a while, blankly, occasionally working up the drive to reach out and press ‘confirm.’ Doing this wasn’t distracting enough to hold his attentions, and the sweltering pain didn’t recede.

Almost without thinking about it, he lay back, and opened up his torso-plating, hoping to get more air into his insides, dreaming about the softness of a breeze over the searing of his spark…

…but oh.

Frag everything, just feeling the strain of his over-worked mechanisms folding back sent slices of agony rippling through his frame. He choked back a whimper and lay still, reeling from it, just holding himself together through the unceasing waves.

This wasn’t worth it, slag it.

Being a leader was hard enough without having to deal with this.

It was hard enough without having to ask his friends to sleep with him. It was hard enough knowing he’d never get to sleep with anyone, afterward, ever again.

It was hard enough to have to make the right decisions, every time.

It was hard enough to have to be alone.

It was too hard.

It was too hard, and he didn’t have to do it, anyway. The Decpeticons were dead. Unicron was vanquished. At the most he was leading a glorified repair crew, and who needed a Matrix for that?

Not Hot Rod.

He reached in over the tender armor of his chest, the flames etched on the outside matching the flames that burned him from within. His fingertips touched the edges of sharp, chiseled metal, and retreated instantly at the white-hot scalding rims.

The Matrix did not want to come out.

He, however, did not want it to stay _in._

Hot Rod was determined even with the searing brand its grips left on his fingers, frying out the sensors on their tips. He was determined, despite the agonizing scraping sound the artifact made when he began pulling it out.

He was determined, despite the sudden emotions it poured into his spark.

It was incomplete.

Rodimus screamed, once, and heaved with all his might.

The Matrix ripped loose.

He was free.

It was the last thing that he remembered thinking, but it was a good enough thought. Now, he’d be able to get some recharge. Now, he’d finally be able to get cool. Now, he’d be able to talk to Springer, and Arcee, and make everything okay again.

Now, he didn’t have to be alone.

But he wasn’t really alone, he realized, as his consciousness slipped away.

There were, as there had been before, the ghosts of memories, tugging at him, draping over him, soothing him.

Coming from the Matrix.

At least now, he mused, they couldn’t torment him while he was sleeping. The Matrix was out, and he was happy for a little while.

The ghosts could wait until he was awake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be part of the Ultra Magnus chapter, all the way up until the point Rodimus pulled his Matrix out.
> 
> I didn't actually know what to do then.
> 
> I didn't know what to do up until the end of the Ultra Magnus chapter, either, but now, in hindsight, it all makes sense. 
> 
> Brains are smart.
> 
> They think more than we do.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to my room-mate telling me that my smut wasn't hot enough, I tried to kick up the volume in this.
> 
> Maybe that is why this is the longest chapter, yet. x-x
> 
> Anyhow.
> 
>  **Warning for Sticky.**  
>  I know its not everyone's flavor, so I wanted to get that out there. You can skip the sticky section without missing any plot by searching for the following key sentences:  
> "The hatch clicked open." : Sticky start  
> "It was intimate, he decided." : Sticky end
> 
> Also some dub-con in this, again due to the Matrix, which is a dick for an inanimate object. Also spark.
> 
> Also some violence.
> 
> You know what, this chapter is starting to sound really wrong. x-x 
> 
> :3 Please enjoy.

He’d blanked out from the pain, he realized later, watching with a sort of disconnectedness as one by one his systems came back online.   This was an unusual way for him to wake up as much as it had been an unusual way for him to fall unconscious, but he knew better than to push it.

Right now, he was going to take this one step at a time.

He was still on his berth in Shockwave’s chambers. He was still much too hot. He was in the dark, too, but that wasn’t saying much since it was always dark on Cybertron.

He did not have the matrix in his chest.

It was relieving in a way, to find it still clutched in his fingers, even if said fingers were only there because they seemed to be fused to the device. It was relieving also to note that his chest-plates had re-sealed themselves, especially since he knew that it would have been agony to have to close them manually.

It was relieving to be just Hot Rod once more.

Without the Matrix.

Without the ‘Prime.’

Frag, he didn’t ever want to put that thing back in again.

He didn’t.

“Are you alright?” an unexpected voice asked, coming from right by the bedside.

Hot Rod yelped.

His hands came up, still soldered to the Matrix, using it to block him from the threat of…

“Ultra Magnus?” Hot Rod choked out, disbelieving.

“Yes,” the stoic mech replied.

“What…what are you doing here? In my room?”

“Perceptor told me you weren’t feeling well. I came to check on you.”

“You did?”

Ultra Magnus stared at him for a moment, then looked down at where he was sitting, his bulk resting on a tiny stool that Hot Rod had seen him carrying around, before. “I’m here, aren’t I,” he said, at last, answering a question that should have been too obvious to ask.

“You are,” Hot Rod agreed, and…couldn’t help but smile a bit. It was nice to be checked on. Even if Ultra Magnus was probably only doing it so he could collect the data-pads that Perceptor had left here.

They were, Hot Rod noticed, still strewn around his berth.

Ultra Magnus had not picked them up yet.

Ultra Magnus _also_ had not asked about the Matrix.

“Could I…could I get some help with this?” Hot Rod decided to ask, holding up the casing that his fingers still clung to, whether he wanted them to or not.

“Yes,” came the simple answer, and both of Ultra Magnus’s mammoth hands reached out, taking Hot Rod’s palm gently in one, the Matrix gently in the other, and prying them apart.

He cried out, when he felt the delicate metal on his fingers peel away.

Primus, how stupid had he been, taking out the Matrix like this?

His intakes hitched, but he clamped his teeth together, watching Ultra Magnus, _focusing_ on Ultra Magnus, needing something to keep track of other than the pain. It wasn’t bad pain, at least. It wasn’t really good, either, but it was something that he could handle, something that he could shunt aside. It was real signals, coming from real, visible problems. It was familiar, physical, battlefield pain.

It wasn’t the sharp, hot aching of his spark.

That, he couldn’t handle.

Slowly, Ultra Magnus’s giant fingers pried each finger off of the Matrix, slowly working them free in order to preserve as much of Hot Rod’s plating as possible.

He hated going slow.

He wanted the big mech to just reach, and rip, and get it all over with, and to stop dallying because he was so, so tired of being in pain.

The look on his face must have said it all, because Ultra Magnus finally looked over, nodded once, and gave a final pull. Hot Rod felt a flash of white fire behind his optics. He heard the screeching rip, as the Matrix tore away.

Then, it was done.

Quietly, Ultra Magnus removed a block of sandstone from the storage on his tiny stool, and he went at the edges of the Matrix, removing the bits of metal that were soldered on, removing the pieces of Hot Rod it had kept for itself.

Hot Rod didn’t want to think about the other pieces that it had.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he said, feeling silly for saying it, but knowing that Ultra Magnus wouldn’t ask.

“You only have two nights left,” the big mech responded, logically, still bushing the stone over the golden grips.

“I can’t _move_ , Ultra Magnus,” he countered, raising his hands to look them over.

They were horrifying, even to him.

His friend said nothing in return.

He hated the silence, and looked over, willing Ultra Magnus to be useful and give him advice.   He didn’t need someone to agree with what he’d just done, he just needed somebody to understand why he had done it. He needed someone who knew what he was going through.

He needed someone to acknowledge his pain.

Primus, he was still too young for this.

He was too young to give up everything, forever.

“I’d be the last Autobot to force you while you were hurting, Hot Rod.” Ultra Magnus said, finally, turning the stone over to get a finer grit, running it between the finger-holes.

“I wish it weren’t doing this.” Hot Rod sighed, and let his optics drift toward the Matrix, watching how carefully it was handled, how reverently it was maintained. “It was hard enough, before, but…how the slag does it expect to get anything out of me, now?”

“It doesn’t seem to be getting anything out of _you_.” The stone was slid back into its drawer, and a small bottle of oil and a soft cloth were pulled out. “Not yet.”

“Then how come I’m still in pain?” Hot Rod bit back, sarcastically, his patience dropping below zero as he watched Ultra Magnus running the cloth over the golden metal, slicking the sides with oil until it shined. It was a dismal contrast to his fingers…his thin metal charred, dark, and twisted on the insides, chewed up enough that most of the joints wouldn’t close.

Didn’t he deserve as much attention as the Matrix?

Didn’t his wounds deserve to be polished, too, smoothed over until they shined?

Was he really, after all, only worthwhile as a carrier of the Matrix, as a body through which it could do the works of a Prime?

He heard a soft keening, a high, sad sound like a whimper, lost too easily within the vastness of his room. He heard it as he stared at Ultra Magnus, watching the large mech put away his supplies, and stand, suddenly, in the gloom. He heard it, and, with horror…

…he realized it was coming from him.

He wasn’t strong enough to do this, after all.

He wasn’t strong enough to hold the Matrix in his chest, or hold the Autobots together. He wasn’t strong enough to weather through the pain. He wasn’t strong enough to think ahead, or rebuild Cybertron, or take the consequences that would come from every failure on the way.

“Look, you should just have it, you know…” Hot Rod started, feeling his optics going fuzzy from the heat and his emotions. “I mean, you already have the polish, and everyone already listens to you, and hey, your spark chamber is bigger so it won’t hurt you so much…”

He heard a tink, as something was set down.

He saw the bulk of Ultra Magnus, and felt the deep murmurs of his steady engines vibrating the air. He felt a breeze brush by him, and heard the clatter of data-pads being swept away. He registered movement, and two, blue pinpoints over him as Ultra Magnus looked down.

Then, he felt cool, strong hands reaching underneath him, lifting him, pulling him against the long, blue and white and red frame as Ultra Magnus put one knee down on Shockwave’s big berth, and then the second. With a grunt, the large mech turned, shifting his weight to settle heavily, his back to the wall, Hot Rod nestled on top of him.

It felt.

Awkward.

And wonderful.

It was like being wrapped in coolness, or a breath of fresh autumn air. It was like a car-wash after a hot summer day. It was comfort and it was relief all wrapped into one, and as much as Hot Rod hated to think about it…it reminded him of home.

Of being back on Earth.

The thick, blue armor took the heat that radiated off of him and dissipated it, pulling it away, bringing his temperature down with touches that made him shiver in delight. He felt the hauler’s strong arms wrap around him, both hands stroking lightly over the surface of his plating, brushing away the invisible flames. Somewhere behind him, he could hear the soft purring of Ultra Magnus’s engine, close. Familiar.

Just laying with him.

Laying with him as Hot Rod, not as Rodimus…because he’d chosen to, and not because the Matrix had demanded it.

He wasn’t really sure of _why_ the hauler had done this, of course, but that didn’t mean he was going to protest it. The pain, for right now, was gone. The ache from his spark had lessened, with another spark so near.

He felt…okay, and okay was about the best he’d hoped for.

He let his hands lay limp and nuzzled back into the frame behind him, just feeling his body relax. “This doesn’t seem very like you, Ultra Magnus,” he murmured, enjoying the feel of the cool metal on his still-burning cheek.

“No,” the other mech admitted, his arms slowing, just holding Hot Rod to him while he leaned, seated, against the back of the wall.

“Then why did you…”

“Because you needed it.”

“Oh.” Hot Rod sighed, a little, letting his optics shutter closed. “And here I thought you only cared about the Matrix.”

“What makes you think something like that?”

“The whole…fixing it first thing.”

“I couldn’t make you better with only a sanding stone and some polish.”

“I guess not,” Hot Rod admitted, just…enjoying himself. “Sounds a little kinky, though. You should try it some time.”

“I can’t imagine who I’d try it with.”

“Oh, I’d be game. It turns out mechs are just as fun as femmes. Who knew?” Hot Rod slid his aft into place, grinding it slowly over Ultra Magnus’s pelvis, listening, satisfied, to the grunt of very-carefully-suppressed arousal that followed.

“Apparently Springer, Blurr, or Perceptor,” the hauler said, restrained, “Though given his track record, I doubt it was Perceptor.”

“It wasn’t.” Hot Rod managed a laugh, slowly flexing his fingers, wishing he could tease Ultra Magnus a bit more without causing pain somewhere. Not having to worry about the Matrix right now almost made this fun again.

It would have been a lot more fun without the guilt attached to it.

“How do you feel?” the large mech finally asked, settling around him, one big hand testing Hot Rod’s plating along his hips to see if he felt warm.

Almost unbidden, Rod felt his hip hitch up, bumping Ultra Magnus’s hand lower. He was cooler now than he had been before, yes, but there were some areas that had remained untouched. He…kind of didn’t want them to stay that way.

The hand paused, as if uncertain what to do.

“Still running hot,” Rod answered, wishing that had changed. “That fragging Matrix. I’m….I’m sorry, Ultra Magnus. I really am.”

“For what?” The hand, almost achingly slowly, finally settled on Rod’s upper thigh, where he’d positioned it to fall. There, it was so, tantalizingly close to his still-burning ports and his main interface equipment.

He couldn’t still want that, now.

He couldn’t.

But Ultra Magnus was deliciously cool, and everything still felt unbearably warm, and…

“I should have been able to endure what it threw at me,” he managed, muffling a whimper against the deep blue torso, not understanding how he could still want this, with the Matrix gone. “It should have chosen better.”

His optics focused on the relic, lying on the stool where Ultra Magnus had set it.

It was glowing, now.

He had no idea what that might mean.

“You came so close,” Ultra Magnus sighed, glancing down towards it, noticing the exact same thing. “I think it wants you to continue.”

“No!” He tried to sit up, tried to pull away, tried to put his broken hands down on the berth and gasped, shocked by the raw feeling of the metal. “No, look, you don’t understand it, Ultra Magnus. You don’t know what it _does_ to you, or what it makes you want, or what it makes you reveal. I don’t….” He winced, pulling his hands up, trying still to stand up off the berth and finding it difficult. “I don’t want to _have_ to sleep with you because it tells me to. I want to… _slag._ ”

Ultra Magnus hooked a hand under his arm, and then the other, righting him up on the berth. Helping. Listening.

He was listening, and Hot Rod was at a loss for words.

He didn’t want to sleep with Ultra Magnus because he was forced to, he wanted to sleep with Ultra Magnus because…

…well.

…because he wanted to.

He wanted to know what it was like to be taken by somebody so strong. He wanted to know what it was like to be so reverently tended to, the way that Ultra Magnus tended to every task, the way he’d tended to polishing the Matrix. He wanted Ultra Magnus to treat him like he treated Rodimus--as Prime, as somebody worth listening to, as someone who was not fresh off of the assembly line or too naïve for responsibility. He wanted to be looked at with that _intensity_ , and focused on, and held just like he had been now, while they talked about the day. Every day.

He wanted that.

 _He_ did.

Without the Matrix telling him to.

And he couldn’t, because it was glowing, even now. It was calling to him, even now.

“I don’t want to _do_ this…” he whispered, staring at it, wishing he could look away and knowing he could not. “I don’t want the pain, and I don’t want the commitment, and I don’t want all the mistakes I’m going to make, and, frag it, you’re kind of intimidating and your spark is really _big_ okay?”

Ultra Magnus stayed quiet, serious as always, just watching him.

Then, after a moment, he offered a hand.

Rod…did…not know what to do with a hand.

He stared at it.

“Hot Rod,” Ultra Magnus said, solemnly. “A leader doesn’t do things because he wants to. A leader does them because they are right.”

“I know.”

The hand stayed there, offering.

Offering what?

“A leader has to make these sorts of sacrifices.”

“I _know.”_

The hand clenched, then opened, once again.

Primus, it was tempting to him.

The heat was washing through him like waves, leaving him shuddering, standing, staring at the open hand and wanting its cool touch. He knew it was the Matrix doing this to him, and _knew_ somehow that he and it were still connected, and he _knew_ that he should just put it back inside.

He _knew_.

“Then what is stopping you, Rodimus Prime?” Ultra Magnus asked, and, for the first time, the name felt right.

It felt right.

“What’s stopping _you_ , Ultra Magnus? The Matrix is right there. You two could go off in the corner and do your thing, and I could catch up on some needed recharge, you know.”

The hand waited. “It chose you.”

“No, I only caught it when it slipped out of Prime’s hand,” he said….

…and that was it. That was it, right there, the thing that he’d hated. The fact that, in all likelihood, it _hadn’t_ chosen him at all, and it had just been chance because he hadn’t wanted a priceless Cybertronian relic to shatter on the floor.

It wasn’t fate, at all, it was…

…it was _stupidity._

He was here, about to sleep with Ultra Magnus in a room with a balcony because of _stupidity._

“That doesn’t matter to anyone else,” Ultra Magnus started, his hand beginning to close.

“Only because they don’t know about it,” Rodimus countered, sharp.

“It doesn’t matter to me.”

That, he couldn’t argue with.

“Why not?” he asked, instead.

“Because,” Ultra Magnus said, his bright blue lenses focusing on Rodimus, intently, as if that were the only answer he would need.

It was a good, long gaze, too.

It was the kind of gaze that would have lit him on fire, if he weren’t already standing there, burned. It was good enough to hold him in place and keep him from retreating as the large, white hand took his smaller, still broken hand, and pulled him forward.

“That’s not an answer!” he protested, finally, but couldn’t stop his legs from carrying him back onto the bed, or the surge of delight he felt when Ultra Magnus’s other hand came up to cup his cheek. Cool. Deliciously cool.

How could every part of this mech be so perfectly, complimentarily cool?

“Because I am interested in you,” Ultra Magnus stated back, settling once more onto the berth, lifting Rodimus up on top of him like it was nothing, draping every singing joint over his frame like dipping a hot brand into water.

“That’s just the Matrix talking.” Rodimus objected, but didn’t have the spark left to resist the way the large mech felt. He wanted this heat gone. He wanted this pain to be over. He wanted Ultra Magnus to touch every part of him, and bring that cool, soothing relief.

He turned his head into the hand that cupped it, wondering how difficult it would be to get the large mech even more ‘interested.’ It would probably not be easy: Ultra Magnus was the pinnacle of self-control. He’d frowned his way through more battles than Rodimus had even witnessed, and kept his wits about him through disastrous, personality-changing viruses.

The fact that he was here, now, actively doing his duty…and not seeming to hate it?

That was more than Rodimus had expected, even if it was probably the fault of the Matrix.

 _Keeping_ him guessing would be the challenge, now…but if the young, brash mech was good at anything it was being unpredictable.

With a smirk, he licked his tongue up Ultra Magnus’s palm.

To his delight, he felt the big mech shiver underneath him from just that one, tiny touch.

“The Matrix isn’t in you right now,” Ultra Magnus breathed in, deeply, obviously trying to bring himself back under control.

“No,” Rodimus answered, beating away his flicker of sadness that, even outside of him, the Matrix could exert this much hold. He would have preferred that somebody…anybody…even Ultra Magnus…wanted him on their own.

He’d wanted to believe it, so much.

“It can’t be affecting me from over there.” Ultra Magnus whispered, his optics locked on where Rodimus was dutifully sucking on one rather large and shapely finger, pulling his lips to the tip and letting go, working back around the outside to the base. He was already straddling the larger mech. The shudder, this time, vibrated straight up through his pelvic plating.

That wasn’t helping anyone’s control.

“Of course it can. You’re _liking_ this!” Rodimus retorted, aroused by Ultra Magnus’s arousal, wanting to show the usually stoic mech that there was much, much more he could be liking right now. Without the Matrix inside, he didn’t feel the urgency that he’d been feeling every other night.

Right now, he almost felt like himself.

“I am not,” the other mech protested, even as he ran his free hand down Rodimus’s waist, and lower, not hesitating nearly as much as he had before to put the wonderfully cool hand on Rodimus’s thigh.

Not hesitating to explore inward.

Not hesitating to touch, and then grab, at the hatch containing Rodimus’s interface equipment.

Rodimus’s engine _revved_ , hard, inside his chassis. “You can’t argue with me, if I’m going to be Prime,” he gasped, pressing his pelvic armor into the exploring hand.

“Then _explain_ this to me,” Ultra Magnus squeezed, searching for the release, needing guidance that was driving Rodimus a little mad. “Because I haven’t done it before.”

The hatch clicked open.

Heat radiated out, spilling over the wires, the nozzle, and the valve within.

“Neither have I.” He hadn’t done it, not like this.

This was new to him, and more than a little alarming at its newness, at the deviation from the normal ritual and routine. He knew what his body wanted, slag it, and the heat from his equipment dangled tantalizingly over the coolness of Ultra Magnus’s hand.

“Please, just…” he gasped, desperate for some action that he knew the other had to take. “Touch. Something. Anything.” He bit down on the hand that he was chewing, stabilizing himself because of his own useless hands before letting go, needing to speak. “Touch _me.”_

The solemn face in front of him nodded, as if it understood.

A large, white finger stroked slowly along his nozzle, so vastly different in temperature that it felt like having fire touched with ice.

It hurt.

It hurt _good._

His knees tightened around Ultra Magnus, and the heavy mech ran his finger back down the length, sending a shiver up his spinal struts.

He’d never been touched this way, before. This was more…intimate…than he’d normally gotten with femmes. He’d been too flighty, too interested in surface gratification, too…

…

Well, too inexperienced. Not that he’d have ever let that show. The interface equipment along the pelvic transformation seam was mostly structural--dating back from a time when ‘interfacing’ hadn’t meant much more than ‘connecting.’ It was a means of sharing data, quickly. It was the largest port. It was, if he wanted to get kinky about it, what a lot of combiner technology had been based on, and…uh…significantly modified from.

It wasn’t something to do lightly, and…Primus, here he was with Ultra Magnus, having his nozzle stroked.

“You’re burning up,” the hauler commented, gruffly, his face a mask of intense concentration as Rodimus snuck a look.

“I told you…ah…” he tried to answer, but found it difficult as a thumb was added, and Ultra Magnus dragged both over the delicate nozzle-connection nodes. “…you don’t know what the Matrix has been doing to me.”

“I don’t want this to make you hotter, still.”

As if he could possibly be hotter.

“Please don’t stop,” Rodimus murmured, reaching for Ultra Magnus’s wrist as if his damaged hands could hold it there, right where it was. Or lower. “You feel so cool…”

The white fingers continued stroking, pulling forward as if collecting heat and charge, then delving back toward the base again. It was all too easy to imagine how that hand could grip along the nozzle’s length, activating every sensor like a port sunk into home.

“I’ve been running under-charged all day,” Ultra Magnus commented, too easily, too distantly, too _logically_ for Rodimus, who didn’t want to be the only mech here swept away. “I couldn’t determine a reason for that until now.”

There didn’t need to be a reason, really.

Rodimus didn’t care.

Ultra Magnus was cold, and he was hot, and the only places that felt good along the whole of his frame were where those two had joined.

The Matrix’s fault.

Inside or outside, it had chosen him. It had settled in his spark.

But it was _not_ inside him now, and Hot Rod was going to do what _he_ wanted to do. He was going to have some fun. He was going to make tonight count, and he was going to give himself something to remember.

Broken fingers reached past the hauler’s wrist, and he dipped forward, bending until his helm touched on the dark blue chest. Error alerts blossomed, warning him of stresses on already tender joints, but Hot Rod only smirked. The white fingers feeling along the length of his equipment halted…

…and he groaned at that, pressing himself back on them, delighting in the feel of Ultra Magnus’s strong hand. The mech was watching, stalling, perplexed at this new action that he couldn’t see, but Hot Rod didn’t want him to see.

He just wanted to hear Ultra Magnus’s intakes catch when he finally undid the hatches of the large mech’s interface plate.

Like that.

Because he wouldn’t be the only one to enjoy himself, tonight.

Both hands reached between his old friend’s thigh armor, finding cabling, valve, and nozzle just as they had been with him. He stroked, carefully, over the valve cover, but ignored it otherwise, grasping his working fingers over the thick nozzle and pulling it forth.

Ultra Magnus’s lenses widened in alarm.

“Rodimus…” he breathed, barely managing to gasp the word out, his hips going rigid and his body suddenly taut. The white fingers had stopped their ministrations, but the other large hand was suddenly at his hips, stabilizing him, holding him in place.

Guiding him.

Over the rigid nozzle that remained extended from the hauler’s frame.

“Go slow.” Ultra Magnus managed to warn, unable to take his optics off of Hot Rod.

“You always go slow,” Hot Rod laughed, not letting go of the nozzle until he could feel the tip of it just at the edge of his valve.

“Yes,” the large mech answered, and lowered Rodimus the rest of the way down.

There was the tiniest shock of voltage between them, as the bare metal met.

Then, he could only feel himself adjusting, sinking around over the twisting nozzle, filling a gap inside of himself he’d only vaguely known about.

It hurt.

The metal inside stretched, bands loosening to accommodate the new and unfamiliar mass, reaching their tolerances, and stretching further.

His teeth gritted together.

“F…frag…” he winced, fists clenching, shooting further pain straight to his processor. He hadn’t expected it to be…this much.

But…heh…that was Ultra Magnus, he guessed.

He hadn’t expected it to _feel_ this much, either, every turn of the cool nozzle locking itself into place along the scalding inner workings of his valve, bringing blessed coolness to systems that had been begging for it.

He couldn’t stop.

Not now.

“Are you sure?” the large mech murmured, and Rodimus tensed, wondering if Ultra Magnus had just read his thoughts.

“I am,” came the answer, and he felt the nozzle screw against the edges of his valve, locking into place.

_Now relax._

It was a command, and Rodimus found himself relenting to it, sagging over the larger frame, pinned by their shared joint, clutching at the edges of plating with what was left of his fingers. He relaxed, and felt the thrum of Ultra Magnus’s spark beneath his cheek, resonating through his armor.

That was how this felt.

_It’s intimate._

“I’m a little tight for you, too…” Rodimus chuckled, softly, still clinging on as if that would help him endure the fullness, or the feeling of every node inside him active and ready.

Ready for what, he wasn’t certain.

Not until Ultra Magnus started to move.

Then, he understood, gasping faintly as the rise of the great hips slid the nozzle up inside of him, griding electricity across each node, drawing a trickle of lubricating oil out and down the shaft.

The hips lowered, and this time, when they rose again the feeling of Ultra Magnus pushing up inside of him was smooth and silken, alien and familiar all at once.

_You’re tight, yes, but…._

The communication trailed off, words cut by a wave of static, a wash of feeling jolting through the nodes. Still, Ultra Magnus moved, his own, thick hands gripping Rodimus around the hips, tightly, carrying him through wave after wave, up and down, sliding in and out, slow.

His valve stretched and retracted, and he whimpered, wanting to know what Ultra Magnus would have said, wanting to know the importance of that ‘but,’ wanting to know how he could hold back this much, keep this kind of pace, slide upward so slowly, building traction, building coolness, building heat…

…and Rodimus fixated on that motion, utterly, as the nozzle hit the ceiling of his valve one last time, and everything exploded in white.

It _was_ intimate, he decided.

It was something like bonding, being this connected to another mech. Hearing their thoughts. Having them inside of you. Moving, when they moved.

Feeling, when they felt.

He’d known from the beginning that he’d have to pick Ultra Magnus for this. There wasn’t any way to _not_ pick the chosen successor of Optimus Prime, the mech that he’d believed in, the mech that the Autobots had thought would actually lead them to their future.

Ultra Magnus was calm, logical, and able to make important, hard decisions in an instant. He was powerful, and he was strong. He was experienced at leading, and _good_ at leading, but he was too humble to want to be the leader, which was exactly what made him perfect for it. He’d sacrifice himself to get the job done.

Rodimus had known these things because Hot Rod had known them.

Hot Rod had looked up to Ultra Magnus, always, even when he was young and brash and trying to find ways around his rules. He’d _respected_ the rules, even when he’d thought he was above them.

They’d been good rules, after all.

They’d been _fair_ rules.

Ultra Magnus’s stability had made the ultimate counterpoint to his hot-headedness, and they’d clashed on ideals more than once.

Ultra Magnus planned. Hot Rod acted.

It had…worked.

It had worked, because, as it turned out, they had needed each other. Hot Rod had shown Ultra Magnus why it was important to be flexible. Ultra Magnus had shown Hot Rod why it was important to follow the rules. They’d softened each other’s extremes, bringing hot and cold into a healthy medium.

Rodimus had just not realized how important that medium--that _balance_ \--could be, until now.

It wasn’t just that Cybertron needed a figure like Ultra Magnus, or that the Matrix needed to sample him to work out what was best…

…it was that Rodimus needed someone like Ultra Magnus, too.

He needed that stable point of view.

He needed someone he could count on to get the job done.

He needed someone that would be there for him, and that would be able to make decisions in his absence.

He needed someone, Primus, that could make him feel this good.

_I…heard that. I think._

Somewhere underneath him, Rodimus registered the low vibrations of powerful engines, and knew he was still draped across his second-in-command. They hadn’t disconnected, yet.

Slowly, he squeezed his knees against the wide hips of the hauler, trying to raise himself up slowly, feeling suddenly like he didn’t have that sort of energy left.

His spark chamber was open.

He hadn’t really remembered that part.

“Fragging…Matrix…” he mumbled, and let himself sag down again, mulling over his recent memories, his error messages, and the thoughts of another individual nestled up against the thoughts of his own.

Ultra Magnus’s engine was purring.

Rodimus had not expected that from the mech who was famous for being a recluse.

“Good to know this wasn’t a terrible experience,” he murmured, crossing one arm underneath his chin and resting on it.

“Are you hurt?” came the standard, ’thinking of others before himself’ Ultra Magnus reply.

“You were right about the slow part.” Rodimus winced, trying to pull himself up again, and failed. “Any faster and I think we might have punctured something.”

“Sometimes it’s better to take things slow. Especially when they are dangerous.” A large, white hand dropped down to Rodimus’s thigh, moving it carefully out of the way before Ultra Magnus rolled onto his side.

Suddenly, disconnecting seemed a whole lot easier.

“I should have known you’d turn this into a lesson somehow.” Rodimus grumbled, and with help from the other white hand still on his hips, he slowly undid their equipment. “But if it helps any, that was…that was worth it.”

The foreign thoughts vanished from his processor as they disconnected.

Rodimus, lying there, exposed, suddenly felt very awkward and alone.

He’d thought it had been worth it, anyway.

Looking at it, again, from this angle…knowing this was possibly the last night he’d get to share with someone?

Well, no.

It had still been really damned good.

He was no longer burning up, even if he felt a little sore around the edges. His spark chamber hurt, yes, but…

Really couldn’t be helped. There was a reason for it, after all.

He reached for the Matrix.

“Hot Rod,” Ultra Magnus said, and his hand stopped just short. “Are you sure about this? About being leader, and giving up your life, your body, and your friends for Cybertron?”

Rodimus remembered the words as they had been spoken by Kup, and his hand faltered. He knew now what they meant.

He knew now how much he’d really be losing.

“To be honest—no. I’m not,” he said, and looked back over at Ultra Magnus, laying, long, across a berth that had belonged to a Decepticon. “But I don’t think that anyone could ever be ready for that.”

It wasn’t supposed to be that easy.

That was, in a way, what the ritual was about. It brought you close to everything you wanted--your hopes, your dreams, your longings…and then, it did worse, and brought you close to everyone you cared about. You saw _their_ hopes, and _their_ dreams, and _their_ longings.

You saw their perspectives.

And, in doing so, you realized that there were more perspectives than your own.

You learned to look at them in new ways.

You learned to look at everything in new ways.

And then, at the end, you had to understand that all of that was more important than yourself. Your goals…those were fleeting.

The goals of Cybertron…

…those remained.

The goals of everyone, together.

“The point isn’t that you’re ready, Ultra Magnus. The point is…” He reached out, and took the Matrix by both sides. “The point is that you do it, anyway.”

It glowed.

He’d known it was going to.

Night six of the ritual was over, and he had learned something important from Ultra Magnus.

He’d learned what duty meant.

This time, when he slid the Matrix carefully inside him, it didn’t hurt as much. He transformed, as he always did, plates sliding over other plates, armor thickening, struts extending until he was Rodimus Prime, once more.   When he looked down, even his fingers had mended a little, small seams healing over where raw edges had been.

This was right.

Except…

“That is what it means to be a leader.” Ultra Magnus confirmed, quietly sitting up, closing his own hatches for modesty. “I believe the Matrix had a reason to choose you.” He swung his heavy legs off of the side of the berth, and glanced back to Rodimus.

Slowly, the torso-panels over the Matrix slid closed, still aching, but not burning this time.

“Are you alright with this, Ultra Magnus?” He asked, softly, realizing that, of all the mechs he had interfaced with, the old commander was the only one who still remained an enigma to him.

“Yes,” came the only reply.

It wasn’t much to go on.

Rodimus, however, did not need much.

He reached out and touched the back of the large hauler, leaving his hand just below the shoulder. “Do you…do you have to go?”

“I should,” Ultra Magnus said, simply, and sighed, his large frame sagging lower than Rodimus had imagined it could.

Something was wrong with the blue and white mech, but Rodimus could not tell what it was…and Ultra Magnus was not being particularly verbose. Despite the connection that they’d shared, he did not have any more of an idea now how Ultra Magnus felt about him than he’d known before this evening. As far as the ritual went…this was a first.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, at a loss for explanation. With every other mech he’d known immediately what the problem was.

With Ultra Magnus, he really wasn’t sure.

He hadn’t seen the other mech through the lens of the Matrix, this time.

He’d seen Ultra Magnus as Hot Rod, instead. He’d been with him, not as the leader of the Autobots, but as a regular mech, joined in body and thought and….

…spark.

They’d touched sparks, without the Matrix.

They’d bonded, without the filter to keep it from getting out of control.

They’d…bonded.

“You can still feel me, can’t you,” he whispered, barely, in shock.

“I can,” Ultra Magnus whispered back.

“And you can feel it, too. The Matrix?”

“I can.”

“Is…is this allowed?”

“You’ll have to ask _it_ ,” the large hauler suggested, turning to look back at Rodimus at last. “But somehow, I think it already knows.”

Of course it had to know. Rodimus had been feeling wretchedly hot all day, and Ultra Magnus had been running cold, and somehow, it all came back down to the Matrix. Even when he’d pulled it out, that hadn’t stopped. Even when he’d pulled it out, the ritual kept going.

But how, without having contact, had it gotten Ultra Magnus involved?

The answer to that drifted to him, across the tentative connection they now shared.

Ultra Magnus _had_ , up until a few solar cycles ago, been carrying the Matrix. He’d been carrying it, because of Optimus Prime.

The Matrix, somehow, had planned this.

But…why?

What could it possibly have gained?

What could it possibly want with bonding them?

“Maybe I ought to go,” Ultra Magnus spoke, quietly, cutting through his racing thoughts. He was already standing, shifting his bulk, awkward and quiet and not knowing how to deal with this any more than Rodimus was…

…and Rodimus, if nothing else, could not stand the thought of Ultra Magnus leaving.

He couldn’t.

His spark had already been through enough today.

He _couldn’t_ spend his final night alone, couldn’t lie here with these tangled thoughts, couldn’t stand feeling split up into seven avatars of himself, seven pieces that he’d given to Arcee, and Springer, Blurr, Perceptor, and Ultra Magnus, all lying separately, close enough to touch but infinitely far away.

“Don’t,” he spoke, simply, and the word came out as a plea.

He needed Ultra Magnus here.

He needed his second-in-command to stay.

He’d _needed_ this, and…

…the Matrix had known, and had provided.

One tiny dream, fulfilled.

“Do you want this?” Ultra Magnus asked, uncertain.

“I don’t want to be alone.”

“Do you want _me?_ ” The question came again, specific this time.

Rodimus did not have to wait to answer. “ _Yes._ ”

It surprised him. It surprised him but he understood, knowing the answer belonged partly to him, and partly also to the Matrix. It…wanted Ultra Magnus, too.

It wanted them both, but it had chosen Rodimus.

It wanted them both…

…and they had both been, conveniently, alone.

He just hadn’t realized, until now, that maybe Ultra Magnus had not wanted to be.

He reached out.

His small, damaged hand entwined with the larger, whole one. He tugged, gently.

Ultra Magnus turned, obeying a force greater than the gentle tug of fingers. He turned, and quietly picked Rodimus up, and for a moment all that Rodimus could feel were strong arms around him, holding him tight.

“We don’t have to do this shmoopey stuff.” Rodimus murmured, leaning his head against the larger mech. “But just so you know, for tonight…I really don’t mind.”

“It took you long enough to accept, considering how impulsive you normally are.” Ultra Magnus scoffed, finding his way back onto the berth, draping Rodimus over him effortlessly like he’d done before.

“Yeah, well, it’s kind of hard to feel anything through the Matrix,” Rodimus retorted, with a grin. “You have to be more exciting.”

“I’ll…work on that.” The strong arms didn’t leave, this time. They held him, and he could hold them back, and they weren’t going anywhere.

He wanted that.

He wanted that, for himself.

Just this one thing.

The rest of him could go to Cybertron.

For now, he was going to relax and enjoy as much of this feeling as he could. For now, he was definitely done with interfacing. He’d be set, probably, for a millennia to come.

Six nights were over.

One was left.

And he was alright with facing it, finally, as Rodimus Prime.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that, I suppose, was why the Matrix came out last chapter.
> 
> It came as no small surprise to me that I'd never actually seen the season 3 episode 'Burden Hardest to Bear,' especially since it deals with Rodimus getting tired of leading and (basically) taking the Matrix out for a while. 
> 
> Shenanigans occur, leaderships are questioned, and Scourge goes Akira on everyone and grows a bunch of bizarre lumps. It was very Season 3, and I got to watch it last night for the first time. 
> 
> Oh, Season 3.
> 
> Anyhow, this chapter had a whole other page on it before the final edit that you see here, now. I was a little worried that I hadn't established Ultra Magnus and Hot Rod as a potential pairing before now, and tried to rectify that after the fact, but...I think I like it better ending like this. I like them both being aware that they wouldn't have chosen this fate, themselves, but also both aware that they need and want it, anyway. 
> 
> Rod is going to need the support.
> 
> He's got the Seventh Night to face.
> 
> I also wasn't really sure what I was doing with the sticky, but I wanted to frame it in a way that made sense to me. Thus, somewhere along the lines it became an evolution convergent with combiner tech, used mostly for structurally necessary connections. Its able to flex and bend and still carry data, woo! 
> 
> I'm going to regret typing that in the morning I'm sure.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of bonding, but that is it! Read safely!

There had been a lot to think about the next day.

The ritual was nearly over with, and life afterward was staring him down. He had plenty of work to do, he had plenty of motivation to do it, and he had, unexpectedly, someone with whom to share the load.

He had a team of someones.

They’d been waiting in the lobby when the lift-doors opened, data-pads, control-units, and energon-finders in hand, ready to begin the process of fetching equipment from Shockwave’s secret space-bridge stash. No one mentioned the Matrix. No one mentioned the ritual. No one made any references to anything that had changed.

Springer had just stepped forward, asked him how things were going to go down, and Rodimus had told them. They’d made a plan, and then they’d made a back-up plan too, in case the first one failed. They stocked up on weaponry, fitting laser rifles and pistols back into slots in armor, ready for any traps that Shockwave might have set. They were ready to go on an adventure.

Together, for his first time as Rodimus Prime.

He’d almost forgiven Ultra Magnus for waking him up at an unholy cycle that morning, because the old hauler had everything waiting for them by the space bridge, and Perceptor had already put the coordinates in.

It was almost easy.

They’d come back, cycles later, covered in scorch marks and more than a few acid burns, but intact. Kup had been watching for them at the door, his own rifle in hand just in case something unwanted had come through.

After dealing with virulent turbo-snakes, Rodimus had been glad to see him standing sentry, but he’d been just as glad to have his team-mates at his back. They were what he’d needed.

They’d gotten the job done.

Now, they’d have their work cut out for them in getting all of Shockwave’s old supplies to Iacon. They’d have their work cut out for them just scrubbing the Decepticon symbols off the tools.

It had almost been fun.

It had definitely been fun.

Sneaking into an old bunker, with Arcee to scout ahead. Dodging laser blasts with Blurr when the first trap was activated. Watching Perceptor decoding the locks to the security systems. Seeing Ultra Magnus catch the door that tried to trap them, and shove it back in place. Standing back to back with Springer, shooting turbo-snakes.

If every day was like this, being Prime was not so bad.

“You did good, kid,” Kup said, only lowering his rifle when he was certain that nothing deadly was about to fly through, watching the crew as they started unloading the back of Ultra Magnus’s trailer. They’d go back through tomorrow to pick up some more, but this was more than enough to get them started.

“It wasn’t easy. I don’t think any of us expected to fall into that lake of acid, but it really helped that it was only two feet deep.”

“Heh. Not all booby traps hold up over time. Consider yourself lucky, and make sure the medic checks you out. I can’t remember which one’s on duty, today.”

“They probably all are, Kup.” Rodimus rubbed at a sore spot on his armor, and headed to take a box from Springer. “I know that they’re still patching up wounds on our soldiers after the Unicron fight, and I’m sure that the explosion from the energon transport probably didn’t help. Blurr did say they’d managed to find Fixit’s head, though, which means they’ll have an extra pair of hands if they can find a body to stick it on.”

“Been listening to Blurr lately, then?” Swinging the rifle over his shoulder into its magnetic catch, Kup reached down to take a box himself.

“I’ve been listening to everyone.”

“That’s a good answer,” the old mech nodded, sagely. “It means you’re starting to be a leader. You don’t look any worse for the wear, either, if I do say so myself, though I did hear something about you giving Perceptor quite a scare yesterday…”

Rodimus eyed Kup closely, and hefted his own box toward the storage bay. “Now who did you hear that from?”

“From somebody,” Kup laughed, glancing over to where Blurr, Perceptor, and Arcee were loading up a pallet with crates. “I’ve got a few secrets yet, and not even a Prime can take those away.”

Rodimus suspected that Kup probably had more secrets than that…if he could ever manage to remember them all. “I want to ask you about one secret, Kup.” He set his box down, and motioned towards a small room just out of the way.

“Well, maybe I can spare just one,” Kup smiled, and put his own box down so he could follow. “Though if this is about the ritual, you seem to be doing pretty well on your own.”

“It is, and…” Well. He had been. Up until the part where the Matrix had tricked him and Ultra Magnus, at least. That fact made him more than a little…worried. About what was to come. “Maybe.” He opened the door, and waited for Kup to step inside before following.

“Tonight’s the last night,” Kup said, standing in the center of what seemed to be a glorified closet and watching him. A single light flickered, dimly, overhead.

Rodimus shut the door, anyway.

“I know. That’s what I want to ask you about.”

There were tools, resting on shelves and hanging from pegs on the wall. There were hundreds of them, wrenches and ratchets and multimeters and soldering guns.

All of them were rusty with disuse.

“The seventh night,” Kup whispered, his blue optics glowing steadily through the murk.

It made things a little eerier than Rodimus would have liked. Shockwave had kept some rooms of his tower in impeccable, spotless condition.

Others, like this one, seemed almost forgotten about.

Rodimus would never find out why.

“Yeah,” he said, focusing on the one living object in the room. “Is there anything I need to know about? Or do? Any…er…positions I’m supposed to occupy?”

“I take it those diagrams helped out?”

Rodimus stared.

Then, having nothing to lose, he shrugged. “They were useful. But they didn’t tell me what to expect tonight.”

Kup sighed, a sound that rattled something deep inside his intakes. “I’d love to help you, kid, but all I know is that tonight is for the Matrix. No one’s ever mentioned more than that.”

“So…what, I’m just supposed to sit up in my room and commune with an ancient Cybertronian artifacat?” Rodimus retorted, crossing his arms.

“Pretty much.” Kup reached out, taking down a pair of pliers and tightening a bolt under his kneecap. It made a tiny squeaking sound in the dark. “Sentinel didn’t talk about it. Optimus specifically refused to say anything. Whatever is going to happen, it’s the best-kept secret of the Primes.”

“You’re making it sound kind of ominous, you know.”

The pliers were replaced back on the wall, dislodging the smear of rust that had accumulated underneath them.

“I can’t imagine that the Matrix would let something terrible happen to you, kid, so don’t worry about it,” Kup said, wiping dust away from his knee.

That was _probably_ true, at least. The Matrix wouldn’t do anything to make him a less effective leader, but within that there were a lot of ‘terrible’ things. Making him spending a day feeling like he was on fire, for instance. Bonding him against his will.

Everything had worked out, so far, but that hadn’t made either of those instances a pleasure to go through.

In fact, they made him a bit afraid.

Before now, he’d faced each night with an ally at his side. He’d known them.

He’d trusted them.

The Matrix didn’t have that track-record.

It had, specifically, hurt both him and Ultra Magnus in order to have its way.

“Yeah,” was all he managed to reply, not knowing any way to tell an old Autobot that the relic he’d been following for ages might have been a little devious at spark. “I guess not.” He sighed, trying not to pull in too much of the rusty air into his ventilation system, and turned around to grip the handle on the door.

Whatever was going to happen tonight, he had already made the commitment.

He was _going_ to be Rodimus Prime.

There wasn’t really any way to stop it.

He wouldn’t be completely alone.

There was always Ultra Magnus, distant but still close.

He pulled on the handle, amused at the old mechanical way of accessing the closet door. Bright light and cool air streamed in, rustling the tools slightly as Rodimus exited. “Thanks for talking with me, Kup.”

“Anytime, kid. Lemme know if you wanna talk again, tomorrow. I’ve been curious about the seventh night for centuries.”

“Right.” Rodimus grinned. “I’ll let you know.”

If he even could.

If whatever happened tonight was so private that even Optimus Prime had never mentioned it, then he wasn’t sure he was going to feel comfortable about it in the morning. What could it be such a closely guarded secret?

Rodimus headed back toward the space bridge, eager to be working with his team once more, eager for the distraction and the simple task of lifting boxes. He’d feel better, he knew, when they were nearby. He’d feel better with them watching his back.

He’d feel better, until it came time to recharge again.

Then, he didn’t know what he would do.

It was the Seventh Night.

It belonged to the Matrix, and, for better or for worse, so did he.

That didn’t make it something to look forward to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These little intermissions just kept popping up, the further into the story I went.
> 
> I think, in a way, its because I couldn't imagine Rodimus _not_ mulling over the events or at least mulling over them long enough to know he needed something to distract him from them. 
> 
> This chapter I like to call the 'Rodimus Sheppard Jones' chapter. 
> 
> He picks his crew-mates from the Normandy and goes and raids the lost Arc.
> 
> Hahahahahahahahaha.
> 
> Ha.
> 
> Okay, not really.
> 
> Seventh Night is tomorrow.
> 
> Be ready for it.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gosh, it's been a while, but I'm just going to post this and try not to have any regrets.
> 
> Warnings for some serious non-con. Plug-n-play. Sort-of-inebriation? 
> 
> Enjoy?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm adding a second set of notes here because I was going through and editing chapters in preparation for FINALLY uploading the last one...
> 
> And I did something silly. I'd originally written two incarnations of this chapter, but since it has been so long since I uploaded the first I had completely forgotten I'd done that. Hence, when I was editing...I edited the old version of the chapter instead of the new one. 
> 
> What is below is the updated old version, so it will not read the same it used to. The same warnings still apply, but the chapter progresses in a VERY DIFFERENT fashion--even if the point is still the same. I also left the bottom note as it is.

Ultra Magnus had walked with him all the way back to his room.

He hadn’t known exactly how to tell him that he was worried, so they’d talked about the day instead, going over how many boxes they’d managed to bring through the portal and how many more trips the rest would take. The conversation had been boring, but Rodimus hadn’t wanted it to end.

He’d already stalled as long as he’d been able, fearful of what was to come once he was alone in his room.

In his youth, he’d been an expert at stalling, capable of looking busy enough with the tasks he _wanted_ to do that he got out of doing other tasks…usually ones he _didn’t_ want to do. He held the Autobot record for ‘least amount of times on mess hall duty,’ which was a triumph that he quietly lauded to this day, even if he was careful not to flaunt it in case somebody noticed and forced him to make up for the slack. He could distract himself from guilt in that same manner, too, procrastinating by doing his work in a certain order, invariably leaving the most difficult parts for last. When he was lucky, he never had to do them.

Since becoming Prime, he’d been able to delegate them anyway.

He’d _liked_ delegating.

The ritual, on the other hand, was something that he couldn’t delegate. He’d been forced to face it head-on and wrestle with it, and learn from it, and it had given him a new perspective on what it meant to be a leader.

During the night, he did his duty.

During the day…well, during the day he mostly tried to forget about it and tend to his _other_ duties. He could manage that.

He’d managed well enough that he’d gone off with Ultra Magnus for an after-shift drink, waiting in the rations line with everybody else, sitting in the corner of the lobby with his half-cube and watching Autobots socialize. Arcee had come by, and thanked him for having Perceptor deliver her data-pad back to her.

Rodimus had smiled, and pretended that doing so had been his plan all along.

It had been good to feel like he was a part of the crowd again, but his body had protested. His spark had experienced too much and so had the rest of him, especially from the all-night cleanup after the explosion. Parts of him still ached from overheating, and his fingers were still sore and cracked along the edges from the Matrix’s burn. First Aid had done an admirable job of neutralizing the acid stains that his team had gotten in Shockwave’s fortress, but losing the top-coat of paint from his ankles made him feel a little raw.

He hadn’t even noticed he was leaning sleepily on Ultra Magnus, listening to Grapple talk.

He wouldn’t have noticed, at all, if the large white hand hadn’t slowly propped him back upward, waking his processes out of the recharge protocols they’d been about to run.

It was getting close to midnight, now, and…

He was standing outside of his room.

Staring at his door.

“Something is bothering you,” Ultra Magnus spoke, stopping next to Rodimus as they arrived.

Trying not to think on what might happen when he went inside, Rodimus shook his head. “I am just tired. I haven’t gotten a good night’s rest since this whole ritual thing started.”

“It’s more than being tired,” the large mech countered, and reached out to poke him on his flames. “Trust me. I’d ignore it if I could, but when your spark is this close it is hard not to know how you are feeling.”

A little shocked, Rodimus reached up to push the hand away, not wanting him to ‘know’ anything that he wasn’t letting him know. “Why can you do that? I can’t do that. I haven’t ‘heard’ a single thing from your spark all day!”

The towering shoulders shrugged. “I don’t think I’ve felt significant emotion all day. I’ll let you know when I do, though.”

Rodimus stared.

He…didn’t have any idea what to say to that, because he didn’t really know how bonding worked. He couldn’t ‘expect’ anything out of bonding to begin with, because bonding was not something soldiers did. Bonding was something civilians did, when there wasn’t a war going on where your partner could suddenly and unexpectedly die. He’d never heard much about it from anyone besides how to do it, and a lot of warnings to avoid it if he could.

It was supposed to be different for everyone, he knew.

It wasn’t supposed to be _unfair._

“Didn’t I tell you to be more exciting?” he scoffed, after a moment, one optic ridge rising as if to let him see the large mech better.

“I thought the adventure and traps were more than exciting enough,” Ultra Magnus replied, still serious.

“Oh, they were. They were exciting for _me._ They weren’t exciting for _you_ , because you’re never caught off guard by anything. You had the rope and the guns and everything all ready to go this morning, and you had a checklist before that. You even drag around a portable _stool_ because…”

“…most chairs don’t fit me,” the hauler finished. “And that stool came in handy today.”

“It…did do pretty good at propping open that blast door.” Rodimus relented, finally, even if he didn’t let his incredulous expression waver in the slightest.

“You’re still upset about something.” Ultra Magnus glanced toward his doorway, as if noting that they were still in the hall. “Will you be okay, if I go?”

With a sigh, Rodimus looked at the doorway, too. “I don’t really have much choice. Tonight is ‘for the Matrix,’ and it’s the last night of the ritual. I don’t know what ‘for the Matrix’ means, but I keep having these horrible flashes about zombie Optimus Prime returning from the dead to sleep with me.”

Ultra Magnus slowly turned his head to stare down at Rodimus.

“That…is…sort of a jump in logic, don’t you think?”

“Look, Magnus, I don’t know _what_ to think,” Rodimus answered, truthfully. “All I know is that I am supposed to be alone, and that whatever is about to happen is so secret or so traumatizing that none of the Primes have ever mentioned it before. Given the way the ritual has gone so far? I’m going to put my credits down on ‘traumatizing,’ and plan for the worst.”

“You’re doing a good job of that.”

“I know.” Reaching out, Rodimus laid one still-slightly-sore hand on the hauler’s hip, letting it linger there for just a moment. Ultra Magnus felt a little cool, just like he had last night. Rodimus, himself, still felt a little warm. It was…nice…to stand here, quietly, with someone that he cared about. For the first time, the haze lifted from the other end of their bond, and for the first time he could clearly read the concern that Ultra Magnus had for him, there.

It was kind of endearing.

It also didn’t help.

“Walking dead or not, I need to get this over with.” Rodimus pulled his hand away, sighed, and reached out for the control panel to his room.

The door slid open.

As expected, no one was inside.

“I know. Signal me if you need anything,” Ultra Magnus offered, and took a step back. “I’ll keep a channel open, just in case.” It was a simple offer, but in conjunction with the feeling of a bonded spark nearby, it _did_ help.

He didn‘t entirely have to handle this, alone. Now, there was a possibility of Ultra Magnus coming to him later on.

Soothing him.

Helping him to bear the burden of…well. Of whatever he was going to face.

“Thanks,” Rod said, glancing back over his spoiler to smile at the hauler. “But don’t wait up too late. I know how much you love your mornings.”

“I get more work done, when no one is awake.”

“I noticed.”

“Good…good luck,” Ultra Magnus murmured, and Rodimus nodded in response.

That was all there was to say.

The door slid closed.

Rodimus was alone.

Distantly, the haze of his connection with Ultra Magnus thickened again, becoming obscure and fuzzy and _present_ , but dim. If he hadn’t known to look for it, it would have seemed like it was gone.

That, at least, was something that the Matrix couldn’t sever.

He hoped.

And if it turned out that this priceless relic actually _could_ keep screwing with him like that, he knew plenty of ways to _amend_ the fact that he’d kept it from shattering. There was a pretty deep fissure nearby, for a start.

He wondered how Primely it was to be considering dropping a cultural artifact down a bottomless pit.

He wondered, also, how ‘Matrixy’ it was to be forcing a new Prime to interface with everyone.

They were pretty even by now.

This night wasn’t going to be any better if he spent it staring at the doorway, though. He turned around, sighed, and glanced around his room.

It was just as he’d left it. Dark. Always fragging dark, enough so that he’d stopped leaving things out on the floor for fear he’d trip over them if he forgot to adjust his optic settings. The monitor in the corner was thankfully not glowing anymore. It was late, and there were no noises of mechs bustling about to filter up over his balcony from outside. He was alone.

With the Matrix.

He set his laser pistol down on the bedside table and stared at it, content with the way things had gone for the day, reminding himself to recharge it tomorrow. If he was lucky, there’d be a few more turbo-snakes to use it on. If he was lucky, he’d be able to hit more snakes than Springer had next time.

He sat down, and crossed his legs.

So.

Tonight was ‘for the Matrix,’ was it?

That meant, somewhere along the line, he’d need to concentrate on it, or commune with it, or meditate, or…something. Something that even Kup did not even know.

Daniel, he remembered, had tried ‘meditating’ once. They’d seen it in a movie, together, where bald human leaders called monks had sat on mountain-tops and hummed quietly until amazing things had happened. Since they’d had plenty of mountains in Oregon, Daniel and he had soon embarked on their own quest for spiritual enlightenment, planning a day to climb up and hang out and even bringing a packed lunch and a fishing pole, just…in case. They’d spent the afternoon together, shivering together, trying to lift rocks with their minds together until he’d had to lift Daniel out of the snow, instead, to prevent hypothermia.

It hadn’t gone the way he’d wanted it to.

Monks, it turned out, had been impressive to stay on top of their mountains so long.

Later that night, Carly had explained that the point of meditation wasn’t a reflection of the external, but of the internal, and that if he ever let Daniel reflect upon the internal in sub-zero weather ever again, she’d re-wire his insides.

Rodimus had never tried meditating since.

It felt a little silly to do it without somebody else.

It felt silly, now.

It was after midnight anyway, and he was tired. He was tired and he…he kind of itched. Along the edges of his joints. He scratched along one until the feeling subsided somewhat, and wondered if the Matrix would really notice if he gave up early and went to sleep.

When the itch moved into another joint, he didn’t even think about it. His hand moved to scratch.

“So, Matrix. Just. You and me, now,” he murmured, rubbing the edge of his knee. “Whatever you’re planning, it would be nice to get it over with. I’ve probably got boxes to lift or architectural plans to ruin tomorrow. You know. Leadery things. Stuff I have to do because of you.”

It was stuff he was willing to do, too, but he was pretty sure the Matrix knew that.

It had known everything _else_ , after all.

It did not, however, seem to be helping much help with his itch. There were now more joints that were tingling subtly, making it difficult to feel any satisfaction scratching one joint at a time. Each place that he itched seem to get itchy again immediately after he left it alone, and there were others breaking out in new spots every time he tried. His back was starting to feel the same tingle, too, beneath his spoiler, right in that little nook where he’d never been able to reach.

That was an actual problem.

He remembered the last time that he’d itched this badly. He remembered trying to rub up against a telephone pole, cursing his manufacturer for making a robot that somehow couldn’t access every part of its own plating. Some designer, somewhere, had come up with a flawed schematic, and he’d been the victim of it.

It hadn’t helped that he’d been over-charged at the time, either, but, really, why else would he be itchy? Finding good high-grade on Earth wasn’t easy. Finding energon pure enough that it actually built up internal charge, leaving excess electrons congregating on the surface of every conductive plate?

It had been really good energon, to have that effect.

However, it had left him itching in places that he hadn’t itched before, and in his inexperience he’d had no idea how to make it stop.

What he’d _really_ needed was someone else to scratch him let off the excess charge, and of course Spinger and Arcee had gone off alone somewhere. If Ultra Magnus hadn’t rumbled along looking for him, he was certain he’d have rubbed his plating off trying to scratch himself on the road-side telephone pole.

Tonight, he didn’t have that luxury.

Tonight, he was _supposed_ to be alone, unless he caved in and called Ultra Magnus anyway, but…

No.

No, he’d do this, and he’d do it right, and if he was itching then there had to be a reason why. If he could figure it out then he could maybe stop.

What had been in that half-a-cube he’d drank earlier?

It had…been…just regular Earth-made energon, he was sure. The same kind he’d been drinking for ages, since it was still easy to get. Last he’d checked, it wasn’t potent enough to overcharge anyone unless you worked it through a special process. Octane might have been capable, but Octane wasn’t around.

He was a Decepticon.

They’d…vanished.

Somewhere.

They’d vanished, and he still itched, and the Matrix seemed completely uninterested in divulging any secret wisdom to him, meditation or no.

This was the most _useless_ night, and all this itchiness was making him a little antsy.

It also wasn’t going away.

It wouldn’t be _able_ to go away without a positive source to discharge all of the excess surface electrons. Any mech would work.

Any mech could help him, on the one night that he was supposed to be alone.

“Look, you won’t get what you want if all you do is _drive me mad,”_ he whispered harshly, scratching furiously at his wrist to no avail. The sensations were getting _worse_ , and it was still only a little after midnight, now.

It was a little after midnight, and he’d…been…though all this before, hadn’t he?

He’d itched on the first night of the ritual, when he’d fallen into fitful sleep and experienced… dreams. Arousing dreams. He’d itched, then, and not understood why he was itching until Kup had pulled him into that old office with his friends and told him about the ritual. Then, he’d realized what the dreams had been about. He’d agreed to go along with the ritual. He’d known that there were not many ways to scratch that sort of itch.

What he was going through now felt exactly like that night…only he did not understand why it was happening. The first night, he’d been tormented because he’d been unknowingly skipping the ritual.

Now…he was being tormented for reasons that weren’t apparent. Wasn’t he doing what he was supposed to be doing?

He was here, in his chambers, alone, trying to meditate with an unresponsive Matrix.

He was _doing things right._

He was also hopelessly, terribly full of excess charge, without any of the happy obliviousness that normally came with it.

Rodimus, exasperated, threw himself back on the berth, gritting his teeth and rubbing his back along the metal. It wasn’t a conductive surface so it didn’t really help, but it was something. Having a berth that was conductive would have been either a _terrible_ idea, or a really, really kinky one.

He’d have been willing to deal with the risk of shock in order to have some relief now.

It.

Was.

Getting to be a little inconvenient.

Frag.

He shot a glance to the dead monitor, looking at the connection ports there that Perceptor had left exposed.

Maybe.

Maybe, he could…

Connect…

No. That was not a good idea.

Mrph.

Connecting might alleviate some of his problem, but it would also fry out half of the panel’s circuits.

Primus.

His optics screwed shut, trapping his overly-bright electroluminescent sensors behind safe shielding, calling out, desperately, to the Matrix within.

Asking.

It.

Argh.

To.

Please.

Stop.

Every sensation.

Crawling.

Everywhere.

Over his plating.

Why was it doing this to him?

He twisted, and it didn’t help.

He squirmed, and it didn’t help.

He could feel the charge building.

It.

Messed.

With his perceptions.

He whimpered, and reached out, fingers scraping over the berth, trying to pull him over the edge.

Over.

The corner.

Right.

The monitor.

The plugs.

Anything.

He’d do.

 _Anything_.

To stop.

This itch.

Help.

_Help._

_HELP._

The Matrix pulsed.

Rodimus gasped, feeling his body arching upward, hands scrabbling over the berth, unable to contain additional voltage that surged through him from his chest. If he’d had any doubts about the origin of the charge, they were put to rest by the sudden, intense buildup over his spark chamber.

He’d felt the Matrix pulsing, nearly every night. He could feel it even through the itch, calling to him, readying him.

Someone was nearby.

He shut off his optics, and called out.   “Help…”

 _Help_.

He felt a large hand at his back, sliding under, drawing current away with an electric tingle that shuddered through him, producing more charge in response.

More.

Primus.

He couldn’t take more charge.

He couldn’t take more charge, but that hand…

Oh.

The relief it brought made him only _want_ more anyway.

More.

He could hear the deep bass hum of engines, feel the energy field of a bright, solemn, familiar spark.

_More._

There was the clunk of a knee on the berth, and the heavy presence of a great, large mass looming over him.

 _More_.

_Now._

“ _More!”_ He cried out, feeling fingers dig into the small of his back, latching under his spoiler, scratching the horrible itch he couldn’t reach. He openly moaned, fighting against the tide of relief, needing more, hearing the crack of electricity as it jumped from the circuits in his back to the intruder’s hand.

“Be still,” the voice replied, low and reverberating, intimate. “You should not rush.”

It was impossible to be still. Every molecule of his surface felt like it was crawling away, and relief only came to parts of him that his guest was gracious enough to touch.

He needed to have more contact.

He reached out, his damaged fingers touching smooth, cool metal. He pulled it in towards him…before he felt resistance, and the hand behind his back lifted him instead.

Their bodies met above the berth, arcs of charge and electricity passing between them.

Rodimus raised himself the rest of the way up, wrapping himself around the large limbs of the other, searching with his own strength until his tongue ghosted over the smoothness of wet lips. He pushed into them, releasing current, drinking with relief from their cool, familiar flavor.

He’d come.

Just like he said he would, Ultra Magnus had come.

“You always tell me to take it slow,” Rodimus muttered, his hands gripping tightly, his own powerful arms holding him securely against the other’s long, comfortable form.

His spark reached out, desiring comfort, seeking the haze and the power and the control that was, by now, all too familiar…

…and meeting ice, where comfort should have been.

“You must have me confused with someone else.”

A slick, ridged leg locked under his, and, suddenly, the weight that had been buoying him up was pressing him back down. His hands met smooth curves instead of blocky angles, and everything was….

Wrong.

It was wrong.

Rodimus unshuttered his optics.

Two bright, steady pinpoints glowed back.

Two red pinpoints.

A Decepticon.

No.

No.

_No._

“Ah, now you’ve figured it out,” the dark voice spoke, unexpected and unnerving.

For a moment, he was too stunned to move. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t…really…even _possible._ It was more logical to believe that this was an illusion caused by the Matrix than to believe that a Decepticon had cornered him here in his own room.

Only technically it wasn’t his room, was it?

Technically, it was Shockwave’s room.

Technically, it had always belonged to a Decepticon.

There were any number of things that Shockwave’s equipment could have transmitted to other Decepticons when it had activated, without him even knowing…

…but that was beyond the point.

There was one here, now.

He had been wrong about the Seventh Night. It wasn’t supposed to be different. It wasn’t supposed to be some commune with the Matrix. He was supposed to take a sample just like every other night.

Someone had lied, or had disguised the truth, and he was now the one who was going to pay for it.

He wasn’t going to put up with that.

His knee came up, fast, slamming into the sleek, purple pelvic hatch, and he could see the red optics dimming briefly in pain. He was at a disadvantage while held beneath his enemy, but that was no reason to give in. His knee slammed up again and he made use of the distraction, reaching out towards his bed-stand, hoping to stretch enough to find his pistol…

…but falling just short.

He was back-handed by an arm much stronger than his own, right back onto the berth.

His head hit, hard, and for a moment everything whirled around him, spinning aimlessly, leaving him unfocused and confused. He could see the bed-stand, not far away. He could feel the pressure over him, and the closeness of another’s spark. Through his dizziness, he could even feel the horrible scratching, everywhere, the electrons crawling through his circuitry, still wanting out.

He struggled.

“Stop this, you fool…” the voice hissed, the same purple arm which had struck him now pinning his shoulder back down against the berth.

He couldn’t resist it this time, couldn’t get his bearings fast enough to push the hand away, struggling to pull himself together as his senses returned. He would find other ways to fight.

“In your dreams, uh…Decepticon,” Rodimus growled right back, hitching his knee where it had slammed and pushing upward to lever the intruder off.

It wasn’t easy.

The intruder was huge and streamlined, and there was not much un-curved plating to catch on to. He could feel his pistons straining, aching…

…and itching, Primus, they were still itching.

Whatever the Matrix was doing, it needed to stop.

It _needed_ to stop.

This was a Decepticon.

His battle would be hard enough _without_ his polarized circuitry desperately singing out for contact.

For any contact.

He summoned his strength in one final heave, his knee pushing upward with the entirety of his might. Slowly, it worked. The Decepticon’s teeth clenched but he was being leveraged away, leaving the pressure on Rodimus’s shoulder weakening.

There was a reason Primes were strong. For the first time, he understood why Optimus had been able to go against Megatron with the support of the Matrix behind him. It had changed his body, and it had given him power.

Rodimus now had that same power. With the help of the Matrix, he could win.

He could win…if the Matrix didn’t have its own agenda.

The Decepticon’s free hand reached out to him, trying to grip onto whatever it could reach. His red optics were glowing steadily, his expression betraying no emotion except determination. Whatever the intrudter wanted, he was not stopping until he obtained it.

What he could obtain was Rodimus’s waist.

There was still charge, there. There was charge, in a terrible combination with bundles of sensors, sensors that released their states while fingers trailed over them, burning delight like lightning across Rodimus’s HUD.

He couldn’t help himself.

Rodimus let go, his leg slipping.

He couldn’t even find the Matrix now, couldn’t draw on its power as it accepted the touch from this mech. Moments ago it had fought with him, lending him intense strength…but now it fought against him, willing him to lie still and give in. Like every night before, it was seeking another spark…and it had found one in a Decepticon.

Rodimus slammed his knee up again, for good measure.

It was all that he could do.

The other knee was hopelessly trapped, pinned already by a ridged, purple leg.

“What are you trying, Autobot?” the Decepticon questioned, wincing, but not retreating. “You ask for help, and then you unsheathe your claws.”

“Autobots don’t have claws,” Rodimus hissed, willing the Matrix to return his power to him and allow him to fight back. “And I do not want your help.”

If the Matrix was listening, however, it did not seem to agree. If anything, lying underneath the Decepticon was only making his awareness of his still-itching chassis increase. The only relief that it granted was in the areas which his enemy was now using to pin him down…and those were not the areas where he needed the most charge to be released.

If this mech did not leave—and soon—then Rodimus was going to be desperately pulling the Decepticon against his most sensitive paneling whether it horrified him or not.

“I can see that,” the mech spoke, watching Rodimus with an expression that he could not read through his serious, solemn faceplates. Slowly, the focus of his optics changed, tracing over the body that was prone beneath him as if considering something. His gaze paused where his hand was resting on Rodimus’s waist, and, while the matrix bearer was too weak to object, he slid it lower.

Rodimus’s entire frame shuddered violently against the berth.

“Guh,” he bit back, clenching his teeth against the wash of input and relief that the Decepticon’s touch brought to him. Being trapped like this was infuriating…but having his body and his matrix both betray him was hundreds of magnitudes worse. “Get out,” he managed to spit at his intruder, his vocalizer hoarse. “Get out, or I will call for every Autobot to come in here with their weapons blazing.”

The dark grey hand paused blissfully in its descent.

Rodimus wished fervently that he didn’t want it to continue.

He didn’t.

However, the crawling electricity on the fringes of his plating was starting to coalesce, increasing in magnitude. Without the few points of contact the Decepticon was providing, he knew he would easily slip back into the maddening state he’d been in only a few cliks prior. He’d lose control…

Just as he had every other night.

So what was the point of the seventh night, then? Why was it progressing like it was not any different, with the exception of the Decepticon?

“If you meant that threat,” the intruder spoke, “then you would have called your Autobots before now. What are you waiting for?”

What _was_ he waiting for? The sooner he rid himself of this dark mech, the sooner he could finish this ritual and the sooner his life would return to normal.

None of this made sense. The Decepticon being here did not make sense. The Seventh night did not make sense. His actions did not make sense…but he was used to that so long as he was subjected to the whims of the matrix.

“What are you doing here?” he finally asked, instead of replying to the inquiry that had been made.

“If you answer my question, then you’ll know the answer to yours,” the Decepticon replied, his tone infuriatingly calm and even.

Despite the measure of control that the intruder was expressing, however, Rodimus was beginning to notice cracks. His intense, red optics were trying to stay focused…trying to hold onto Rodimus’s gaze but unable to. Periodically they looked away, and while they always tried to flee to some corner of the room it wasn’t hard for Rodimus to notice that they glipsed down hungrily at him, first.

Then they moved on quickly, as if their owner refused to acknowledge their divergent path.

The Decepticon was not happy to be here anymore than Rodimus, that much was obvious.

The orange mech just wished he’d just hurry up and acknowledge it so he could leave.

A small spark flickered from his armor, bridging the gap to the mech beneath. Rodimus, still barely managing to take each breath slowly, stifled a whimper at the feeling of additional energy coursing over his plating. It would not be much longer now before he lost control completely, and started to squirm.

The purple mech had offered to help him, but he refused to accept that sort of help.

So why was the Decepticon here?

He glanced up to find the red optics staring straight down into his blue ones…and he could not help but notice the way his intruder’s arm was starting to shake, still pinning him down but obviously having difficulty.

As he watched, he could see another tiny spark jump—but this time it did not travel between them. Instead, it played over the dark armor of the purple mech.

His own optics widened in realization.

He’d thought that he was the only one impacted by being super-charged tonight.

He was wrong.

The sensations he’d earlier mistaken for Ultra Magnus’s coolness had been something else entirely—they’d been a second charge with a different polarity. The Decepticon had come here for a purpose…and although Rodimus did not know how he’d known to come, or why…he did understand that the Decepticon could no easier leave than he could call for reinforcements.

They were both trapped—opposites, attracted to each other by a more powerful force.

Tomorrow, he was going to throw the Matrix off of a cliff.

For tonight…he raised a hand.

The Decepticon’s optics latched onto it, immediately, following its shaky course as Rodimus tentatively reached out.

This time, he did not try to attack. This time, his hand settled carefully along the sharp, angled faceplates of the intruder.

The Decepticon’s optics slid shut, thin covers descending to briefly block their deep red glow. Charge was pooling between them, flowing freely from the contact in a way that felt much more soothing than it should, but the true bizarreness was in seeing a Decepticon trust him enough to keep his optics closed. Rodimus had not experienced anything so strangely exhilarating, before.

He did not want to be excited by this.

However, he could not deny that the relief their contact brought him was too desperately needed for him to object.

When the Decepticon’s hand started sliding along his waist again, he found his hips rising to encourage it. Rodimus moved with the other mech instead of against him, twisting slowly on the berth beneath his satisfyingly electric touch. When he drew his own fingers down the dark grey cheek and let his thumb trail on the unfamiliar lips, he was satisfied to hear a pair of twin cooling engines kick on.

He was not the only one helpless to unwanted desire, tonight.

“At least tell me who you are,” he finally managed to ask, his vocalizer cracking in distraction as the path of the intruder’s hand crept lower, towards the point of greatest charge.

“We’ve met before, Autobot,” the smooth voice replied, his lips brushing against Rodumus’s damaged thumb, closing over the uneven plating and then drawing off of it again as if sucking out the lines of charge. “I believe it was _your_ ship that I shot down over Quintessa. I could have stayed to finish the job.”

“That’s…not exactly the sort of revelation that helps anyone be intimate with you, you know,” Rodimus replied, fighting against himself to not shiver helplessly at the simple impact that the Decepticon’s cool lips were having on his thumb.

When the other mech’s red optics opened into thin slits that locked onto his with hazy, suppressed arousal, it was hard not to shiver for an entirely different reason. “Not for your kind, perhaps,” he murmured, and dipped forward to draw his lips across Rodimus’s flames.

Rodimus gasped.

The matrix inside of him pulsed, heating his chest-plate and producing additional charge. He felt sensors across his body activating—and sensors inside his body priming, and with a distant dawning horror he realized just how far this was going to go.

Didn’t the Matrix know? Didn’t it realize?

Didn’t it clue into the fact that _this was a Decepticon?_

Why wouldn’t it let him fight?

He whimpered, but even he could no longer tell if it was from fear or from a growing and desperate appetite. The large mech let his body settle over Rodimus’s, bringing his lips away from the flame-crested chest, scraping torso over torso--

Primus.

Their pelvic armor touched.

He felt the electricity that arched between them, and felt the hot fire of each internal node signaling its readiness.

A silver, ribbed thigh slid in between his legs, and current lanced back across the narrow gaps where they were not yet touching, pulling them closer.

He could barely suck each gulp of air in through his intakes, and the only comfort he took was in hearing the Decepticon struggling with ragged breaths above him, their hot vents mingling and raising the temperature of the room.

“You have no choice in this, Autobot,” his enemy said, brushing forward until their lips touched, just barely, almost tentative. Rodimus could taste the cool, brisk flavors of ice and space, alien as they were to a mech who had spent his life racing along the ground. “Not any more than I do.”

Pressed down like this, both of their engine vibrations mingled, sending waves of sound across the surface of his plating to chase away the itching that had been driving him mad. Every touch was a reward—electricity dispersed, polarities mingling, fire meeting ice and itches being scratched. He craved the Decepticon’s hands over every inch of him, but was too proud to ask for it. He craved the feeling of cool fingers sliding into his circuitry, or cold lips on his thin, delicate spoiler, or a sharp nozzle, penetrating his willing valve.

He wanted every. Inch. Explored. Until all traces of the crawling, horrible, electric itch were gone.

Every Inch.

Even if it brought this intruder dangerously close to his spark.

The Matrix didn’t seem to realize…or worse…didn’t seem to care if this was the sort of sample it accepted, and he was powerless to object.

He’d _tried_ to object, and its will had won out against him.

“You could have chosen not to come here,” he finally managed to retort…but was stopped when a strong, grey hand dipped down to his interface hatch suddenly. Pointedly.

It was…so close.

It hovered over the thin sheet of metal that protected his equipment, and it took all of Rodimus’s strength not to rise up to meet it. It took every ounce of control he had.

“Is that the wisdom of the next leader of Cybertron?” The mech wondered and waited, watching Rodimus as he grew rigid beneath the patient hand. “Are you going to follow the legacy of Optimus Prime, chosen by the Matrix but specifically excluding half of its subjects?”

Rodimus had no answer to that.

Of course he had not intended on including a Decepticon in this ritual…because up until recently they’d been the enemy. He did not want them on Cybertron.

No one did.

No one wanted the deceit, or the violence, or the dark reminder of four million years of war.

No one wanted situations like _this_ , trapped, helpless to the demands of another…

…but it was not this mech, he realized, who trapped him now.

This mech was waiting, watching him….and shivering with the effort of holding back. This mech was, in his own way, _attempting_ to be reasonable despite the incredible pull of the Matrix urging him on.

Rodimus did not know how he felt about that.

The Matrix did not seem to want him to think too hard.

It pulsed, and Rodimus cried out, unable to resist. “Just…touch me, slag you,” he whispered, harsh, giving in at long last. “I know that’s what you came here to do.”

“No,” the other murmured, his optics sweeping over Rodimus’s frame in a way that made him feel naked and exposed and desperate. Still horribly desperate. “That is not why I came.”

“Then why?”

The red optics flew back to meet his, considering, really looking at Rodimus as he panted beneath them.

“To give Decepticons a future,” the velvet voice spoke, and passed a thumb over Rodimus’s interface latch.

He heard the click.

He heard the hiss, as the hatch slid back, and he felt the pistons in his legs tighten, wrapping themselves around the sleek, ridged thighs.

He heard himself sigh, too, optics lidding in relief as the hand reached inward, wrapping itself in circuitry, squeezing charge from wires as electricity flowed between them, at long last.

A future.

That was…all that this mech wanted?

They’d been in a war, but the war was over. The war was over, and there weren’t that many Cybertronians left, and…well. They’d fought for four million years.

The Autobots had only won on a technicality.

Generally, nobody expected giant, planet eating gods to finish their fights for them.

When he tried to think about it, Rodimus didn’t even know what the Decepticons had been angry about in the first place. As long as he could remember, the fight had been over energon.

With Earth as their ally, there was plenty of that, now.

The problem was, of course, that they were still Decepticons. They still caused pain, and terror, and hardship everywhere they went. They were brutes, and they were bullies, and they had no respect for any lives that weren’t their own…

…but they were resourceful, and they were smart, and he had seen them save each other more times than he really wanted to count. They were still mechs, with good sides and with bad sides.

They were still Cybertronians.

They still needed a future.

It was, admittedly, a little hard to sympathize with them at the moment, and Rodimus winced as the hand dug deeper into his interface cabling, twisting, fingers wrapping up around nodes he hadn’t even known existed, satisfying itches inside that he hadn’t even known he’d had.

He squirmed around that hand and spread his legs wider, inviting the touch, watching the foreign optics as they searched his own, unreadable, flickering each time charge arced between them.

The Decepticon’s lips parted.

They parted, and Rodimus rose up to meet them, unthinking, satisfied by the surprised, muffled sound that passed between them, satisfied by the way the hand stalled inside of him, satisfied by the current that flowed freely everywhere that they were joined. Positive to negative.

The other’s intakes hitched.

Rodimus reached up and gripped, passing his hands over the surface of the unfamiliar armor, teasing along a seam, testing…

…and finding a strange delight in the way that the intruder tensed.

This was Rodimus’s seventh night, but every sign was pointing towards it being this Decepticon’s first. Both of them were caught in the inexorable pull caused by the Matrix, but only _he_ was familiar with its tides. Only _he_ knew how much it made one yearn for its connection, and only _he_ knew the way its ‘itches’ could be scratched.

This Decepticon had pinned him, and had initiated every touch so far…

…but this Decepticon was at the disadvantage.

If Rodimus had no choice but to finish this…to accept what he was given here, and include this stranger in his ritual…to give his body, his passion, and his very _soul_ over to a mech who’d tried to kill him…

Then he was going to do it on his own terms.

 _He_ was going to be in control.

His spark chamber opened, slowly.

He’d learned about slow, from Ultra Magnus.

He’d learned that the inexorable momentum of the Matrix’s sampling would not allow the other to resist, and he knew how powerful this force could be.

Rodimus broke the kiss, and smirked, finally, at the startled optics that met his.

The Decepticon’s chest plates parted, whether he’d willed them to or not.

Rodimus reached up, trailing his fingers around the edges of the other’s spark chamber, listening to the soft gasp that this mech built for destruction could not help but make.

The strong hands still gripped him, yes, and Primus, how he still wanted the itch inside of him to be satiated…

…but that would be gone in a moment, after their sparks combined.

As much as he really, really, _really_ wanted to treat this intruder to his own medicine, and hold him here, like this, stroking along the edges of his spark chamber, feeling the shivers wracking through him…

No.

Rodimus pulled the Decepticon forward, and let the energy licking outwards from the Matrix—tempt this new, unfamiliar spark into joining with his own.

And oh.

It was huge, and it was powerful.

It was bright, and strong, and steady, and calm.

It was…a lot like Ultra Magnus, in that.

It had been made, somewhere, to be like Ultra Magnus, by a mech using a blueprint as old as Cybertron itself, building a warrior who could win wars, who could accept responsibility, and who would do what was needed to win, taking the burden.

No wonder Rodimus had been tricked. No wonder the Matrix had accepted it.

This was Cyclonus.

Made by Unicron.

New, but built from parts that were eons old, and sturdy. Decepticon parts.

Cybertronian parts.

He’d been built of Unicron but not built for Unicron. Unicron had never mattered to him.

Galvatron had.

Galvatron had, and the sudden loss of purpose at Galvatron’s disappearance had struck Cyclonus deeply. He’d been lost, drifting in the cosmos, arriving to Cybertron too late to help his leader, too late to lead the Decepticons in any organized retreat, too late to stop the destruction that had followed.

He’d…mourned, as only a Decepticon could mourn.

He’d mourned, and then he’d set to work, rounding up the rest of his brethren, finding a world for them to survive on, leading, in Galvatron’s absence, and waiting for Galvatron’s return.

Waiting.

Waiting until he’d received an encoded message from Shockwave, from a _dead_ Shockwave, and had found his way to Shockwave’s tower.

To do his duty as a Decepticon.

To do his duty to the Matrix, as Megatron had done before him.

To do his duty to ensure that someday, all finally became one.

This time, Rodimus was ready for the sensations that swept over him, ready for the mingling of selves that came when two sparks collided. This time he weathered it, clinging to consciousness, watching the scenes playing from a distance but not able to stop himself from feeling them.

From feeling loss, from a Decepticon.

Loss.

Duty.

Loyalty.

That…hadn’t been expected.

His optics flickered back to life.

For the first time he remembered everything, sharp and in focus. For the first time the journey had not been overwhelming, or dizzying, or confusing. For the first time he’d felt almost…in control. His head was clear. He didn’t hurt.

He was also within arm’s reach of his bed-stand. Without having to think about it, he grabbed immediately for the pistol lying there, and stared at it for a moment, feeling its familiar weight in his hands.

The intruder lay on top of him, engine whirring softly and red optics offline. Rodimus was awake. The Decepticon was not. It didn’t take much debate with himself to slowly press the laser against the Decepticon’s head.

He thought about firing.

He didn’t fire.

Instead he held it firmly, counting off the seconds as Cyclonus’s systems began cycling online. He tried to tell himself he should be angry. He should be. He should be livid that he’d been lied to and that his enemy had taken advantage of that, but as the seconds ticked away no fury came.

He’d seen too much to be angry.

It didn’t stop him from keeping the pistol pressed tightly against the intruder’s head. He closed his spark chamber as an afterthought, not wanting his threat to be lessened by leaving himself exposed. It still hurt.

He did it anyway, and waited for the red optics to glow.

To focus.

To look at him and see the pistol and understand.

Cyclonus licked his lips and nodded, seeing what Rodimus wanted him to see. Aware, obviously, that Rodimus was in control but still laying on him, draped intimately, engine purring smoothly. Pleased.

Too pleased.

One optic ridge quirked, and, not slowly at all, he pulled his hand out of Rodimus’s interface equipment.

In the time it took Rodimus to wince, the Decepticon had aimed a gun at him, as well.

A stalemate.

He would have laughed if it weren’t suddenly so dangerous. He would have been angry, too, if it hadn’t been so well-played.

“Do you really want to shoot me, right now?” Cyclonus asked, the voice still smooth and dark like velvet, even without the Matrix coloring it.

“What will you do, if I don’t?”

The red optics flickered, once, and Rodimus’s finger tightened on the trigger.

Nothing happened.

“I’ll fly back to the army in my keeping,” Cyclonus stated, not bothering to disguise the truth, “and ensure they live to fight another day.”

“You’re not making a very strong case for yourself, you realize. I’m not interested in Decepticons fighting.”

“It is what we were built for, Rodimus. It’s only Autobots who see that as wrong.”

Cyclonus shifted on top of him, and slowly closed his own torso-plates, resealing his spark chamber at last.

Rodimus let him.

“No,” he said, after a moment. “It’s not just Autobots who see it as wrong. It’s all the other worlds that you hurt in your fighting. I’m pretty sure they’re not too keen on it, either.”

“Keen. Hm,” Cyclonus scoffed and sat up, no longer pointing his gun at Rodimus. “Those worlds should have been strong enough to repel us. We’d have found another place to go.”

“Not everybody wants to fight.”

“Perhaps they don’t. Perhaps it is just us Decepticons,” Cyclonus murmured, and glanced down to Rodimus’s hands. “But I’m not the one who is still pointing a gun right now. Perhaps you, Rodimus, ought to decide what _you_ want. What your _Autobots_ want.”

Rodimus looked away and sighed, and finally let the arm holding the pistol drop.

There was nothing else that he could do. If Cyclonus had wanted to attack, there had been plenty of opportunities, and he hadn’t taken any of them. The lack of a struggle was confusing, and it was disorienting, but Rodimus was too damned tired to really try and think on why right now.

He just wanted Cyclonus gone.

“Look, you’re a Decepticon. We fought a war for millions of years that ended _by accident_ only a few weeks ago. I don’t have many reasons to _not_ shoot you. You flew into my bedroom and _slept with me_. Against my will.”

Cyclonus looked back at him. “Against your will, but not against the will of the Matrix. Did you consider _that?_ ”

Rodimus was silent.

He was silent, because he _had_ considered that. He’d considered it as he’d struggled, and he’d considered it as the Matrix had done nothing to assist.

“We are a part of Cybertron, Rodimus,” the Decepticon continued, and stood up. “Only an Autobot would be so naïve as to forget that fact. Only an Autobot would think themselves arrogant enough to write us out of its history….” Rodimus shivered, as he considered the legacy of the Seventh Night, and how it had been erased. “Or leave us out of its future.”

And that, of course, was what this was all about.

His optic lenses widened as he realized it, putting together the pieces for himself.

Cyclonus had come tonight because he was a Cybertronian. He’d come tonight, because all Decepticons had been Cybertronians, once, and because if they were ever going to be again they needed the Matrix to recognize them. They needed to be recognized by it for the future, and it _had_ recognized them, despite Rodimus’ protesting. It had found something worth sampling.

More than one something, in fact.

It hadn’t cared what spark it had taken that sample from at all. It had only cared that that spark be a Cybertronian with admirable qualities, and as far as it was concerned there was no difference between Autobot and Decepticon. There were just seven nights, and seven mechs.

The last night had always been ‘for the Matrix,’ but this wasn’t something that the Matrix knew. This was something that must have come afterward, something that had needed to be engineered by someone long ago. Maybe there’d been a group that had needed it for control. Maybe it served to randomize the selection. Maybe the seventh night was just an awkward mistranslation of some ancient ritual text.

Either way, Megatron had known about it.

Shockwave, at one point, had obviously known about it too.

Now, he knew.

He knew, and he understood why Cyclonus had made this journey for his Decepticons so that they, one day, could come home.

It was a scary thought when put into perspective, but it also was one that he could respect. If the Autobots had lost the war, he knew he’d have flown across space to sleep with a Decepticon if it meant helping his team. He’d have done it, and he knew Optimus would have done it, too.

Rodimus looked down and sighed. “If you’re looking for a future, then maybe you should look outside.” He glanced toward the balcony, looking out at the hundreds of empty buildings yet to be repaired, trying not to see the darkness, or the damage, or how much work lay ahead of them still. It would take them millions of years to make it what it once had been. “We’re trying, here. We’re trying to build something…and you can either keep away from it, or you could. I dunno. Come help us out, or something.”

Cyclonus stared at Rodimus for a long, long time, at that.

“We are a part of Cybertron, Rodimus,” he said, and stood up. “But we aren’t a part of the Autobots. I don’t think either of our sides would be ready for that.”

Maybe they never would be.

It was a shame, in a way.

It was a shame, because like this? Just talking? Rodimus could almost respect Cyclonus. He could understand him, in ways he’d never expected to understand this mech before. He could see why there was virtue in his enemy, and he could see how maybe, once upon a time, they’d all lived as the same race. As Cybertronians. Good, and bad, alike.

He could see now why the days when Optimus had it the hardest were the days when he was fighting Megatron, on the days when he had to face a part of his own spark, a part of Cybertron’s history and culture, and still vow to destroy it.

The Decepticons must have served some sort of purpose, once.

There had to be a reason for their fighting.

Rodimus, however, did not really know what it was. He didn’t know what it was, and he didn’t know how to return to that, and he did not know how to reconcile all the wrongs that had been done.

He didn’t know.

“No,” he agreed, finally, and put his own pistol back on the stand that it had occupied. “I guess not.”

It was, maybe, something he’d spend his entire time as Prime trying to figure out. It was something he should be figuring out, because he was the only one who had the tools to do it. He was the only one who had the right perspective and the only one who might be able to lead them toward real peace, again. He was the only Autobot, alive who had seen the soul of a Decepticon.

Well.

As long as Jetfire had been truthful about that thing with Starscream.

He…

Really didn’t want to think on that, right now.

“Till all are one, Rodimus Prime,” Cyclonus bowed his head, staying bowed, respectfully, the wing-flaps on his shoulder’s spread to catch the air. Decepticons…flew. That was, he realized, why Decepticons had balconies.

“Till all are one,” he whispered, and watched Cyclonus step off of the edge.

He watched for a long time afterward too, staring at the fading trail of cooling air where the purple jet had disappeared, heading out into the stars.

The Decepticons were out there, somewhere.

They were out there but he guessed they wouldn’t attack. Not tonight.

Not tomorrow night.

Not for many stellar cycles, if Cyclonus kept his unspoken word.

They didn’t need to attack.

They were a part of the Matrix, now. Whether he had wanted it or not, they were part of the future he was building, part of the destiny of Cybertron.

That would still be a long time in coming, he knew.

It wouldn’t be him that led them to it.

But maybe, just maybe…

…the next Prime might not be as surprised as he was by his seventh night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and I fought each other. We fought each other through three rewrites, before I scrapped it completely and started it over again. It took me the last month? Month and a half? I don't even know, I lost track.
> 
> This isn't the last chapter, but still.
> 
> It was supposed to be really damned important. I don't know how I feel about it anymore, but I just want to post. x-x 
> 
> The good/bad thing about this taking so long was that when I went back and looked at the other chapters, I could glance at them with a fresh perspective. Now, I think I'm gonna go back through and do some edits, and hopefully get those done by the time the last chapter is up. 
> 
> Anyhow.
> 
> Cyclonus.
> 
> Ijust.
> 
> I don't even know what to say now. It had to be a Decepticon, and I wanted a season 3 Decepticon, and Cyclonus is just so darn loyal I figured he'd do this if he thought he must. 
> 
> Somehow, I feel like the matrix is just holding the two of them together and going 'now KISS.'
> 
> MATRIX=actual villain of my story.
> 
> One chapter more, to wrap this all up.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS IT THIS IS THE END.
> 
> I don't know why I didn't post it sooner, because I had it written.
> 
> Actually, I do know why and I'll talk about it in the final notes. For right now, blame Alex 'Torpeedo' Riley because they left a comment which kicked me into gear. 
> 
> So here it is--The...eighth? night.

Rodimus, it turned out, dreamed pleasant dreams the last night.

He dreamed plenty of them, seeing Cybertron of the past, during its golden age, and Cybertron in the distant future, the way he’d never seen it before. There were mechs who took the faces of friends, and mechs he swore he knew but couldn’t put a name to, and mechs who stood by him in hard times and bad. He marveled at the beautiful, bright cities whose metal had once shined beneath a Cybertronian sun. He also stared at silent awe at Cybertron rebuilt, and Cybertronians upgraded almost past his comprehension. He remembered laughter, and he remembered joy. He remembered feeling warm arms around him, and remembered gentle words uttered in the middle of the night.

He remembered the last most vividly of all, because it turned out not to be a dream.

When he woke, he was laying on top of Ultra Magnus, fingers curled around a windshield while the rest of his limbs splayed. They were on his bed in Shockwave’s chambers, and it was, of course, still dark. It was dark but lights were shining in from the window, making it seem brighter than it was. Outside, he could hear cars driving on the roads, heading off toward the bridge launch site. Everything felt alive.

He felt alive.

Ultra Magnus felt very alive, and for a moment Rodimus just rested his cheek-plating against the larger mech’s form, feeling his slumbering engine vibrating peacefully beneath. It wasn’t like the hauler to sleep in. It was downright unusual, in fact, and Rodimus suspected that he hadn’t gotten any rest at all before he‘d come in.

When had he come in?

With a grimace, Rodimus forced himself to concentrate on the groggy memories of the night before.

He could remember the horrible itching, and he could remember Cyclonus. He remembered trying to shoot Cyclonus, and he even remembered why he’d finally decided not to. After that, everything became an exhausted blur.

He’d been worn out and shaky from being so close the enemy, never knowing what would happen from one moment to the next, having no choice in the matter, baring his spark to a Decepticon…

Rodimus shuddered.

Underneath him, Ultra Magnus stirred, his optics flickering slightly as power slowly returned to them. His large, blue and white arms reached out, and carefully they wrapped around Rodimus to pull him close. Already having his cheek resting on the hauler, Rodimus felt suddenly pinned tight, clamped against his second in command, but, well. It was Ultra Magnus.

Being smashed into him only made Rodimus feel better, somehow.

“Took you long enough to wake,” he scolded, ignoring the fact that he’d only come out of recharge a few moments ago. “When, uh. When did you get in last night?”

The hauler shifted underneath him, engine grumbling quietly while Rodimus listened to his booting protocols warming up. “Late,” was the short answer.

‘Late’ meant it couldn’t have been long after Cyclonus had left. “And you didn’t bother to knock?”

“…did knock,” was the slightly longer answer, one that indicated exactly how much time it took Ultra Magnus to come out of sleep-mode. No wonder the large mech always woke up early. Rodimus hadn’t had any idea that it was just because he needed extra time to let his systems cycle on. “No answer, so I came in anyway.”

Alarmed by what ‘came in anyway’ might mean, Rodimus sat bolt-upright in bed, pulling himself mostly loose of Ultra Magnus’s grasp.

Sure enough, the door to his chambers was pushed back into the wall, the imprint of a giant hand clenched onto the side.

Even worse, Kup was standing in the entry.

He gave Rodimus a little wave.

“Kup!” Rodimus yelled, startled, and leapt off of Ultra Magnus. His legs hit the ground too soon, causing him to wobble unexpectedly from a height that he hadn’t gotten used to yet. He straightened successfully and glanced back and forth between the mech in his bed and the mech in his doorway, feeling awkward to be caught with Ultra Magnus so soon after the ritual’s end. Technically, he hadn’t told anyone about the bonding, yet.

Technically, he didn’t want to tell anyone, at all.

“G’morning, Rodimus Prime,” the old-timer saluted, his jaw cocked into a grin. “I just came by to check and make sure you were still alive.”

On the berth, the hulk that was Ultra Magnus sat up, calmly, upon hearing Kup’s distinctive voice. “I have already confirmed his status, Kup,” he spoke, now completely awake. “And I believe you have duties that started 20 clicks ago. I can take this from here.”

Kup stared.

Rodimus stared, too.

Maybe Ultra Magnus didn’t take as long to wake up as he’d thought.

“Right!” Kup said, after a moment, putting both hands on his hips. “And there isn’t anything more important than our duties. I just wanted to know how things had gone. Seeing as that, you know, I helped out with the rest of the ritual, I was hoping somebody would finally clue me about the Seventh Night before there is another generation. If I’m even around that long.”

Rodimus was pretty sure he’d gone right past ‘embarrassed’ and straight into mortified, and he wasn’t sure what made him feel the worst. On one hand, Kup had just walked in on him lying on top of Ultra Magnus. On the other hand, this was a personal question, one that he didn’t feel anywhere near prepared to give, _especially_ in front of the mech he’d just been lying on.

“I’ll…I’ll tell you later, Kup. Ultra Magnus and I have some business we need to discuss.”

“How much later?” Kup countered, obviously familiar with this sort of brush off.

“Not today. Probably not tomorrow. Look, I don’t want to talk about it right now, Kup. It was…” He trailed off. “I was…” He tried, again, and glanced to Ultra Magnus, looking for support but not even certain how much the hauler knew. “I’ll just…tell you later, Kup. Before I die.”

“How about before _I_ die?” the old mech asked, and, unable to see a problem with that, Rodimus nodded.

“I promise. Before you die. Now _go._ ”

“Yes, sir.” Kup offered a salute, loose but practiced, and Rodimus couldn’t help but catch the twinkle in his optic. He _would_ have to explain this later, somehow, but it wouldn’t have to be right now. He’d have time to think, and time to consider how he even felt about it, and time to make sure that whatever he said was right. “Just don’t go forgettin’ about that other thing I told you,” the old mech said, and cocked his head toward Ultra Magnus. “That thing that you can’t do anymore.”

Unable to help himself, Rodimus found his hand covering his face.

“Right. Yes. _Go._ ”

So Kup probably didn’t know about the bonding, if he was trying to tell him not to sleep with Ultra Magnus. That was good.

Even if he didn’t know about the bonding, however, Rodimus was still horrified to have it said out loud. He stood there, hand still on his face, feeling the warmth of embarrassment cloying there, and didn’t want to turn to look at Ultra Magnus again.

He hadn’t told him yet.

He hadn’t come to terms with it, himself.

Not being able to sleep with anyone, ever again? Not even someone that you shared a bond with? How did you bring that sort of thing up?

“What can’t you do anymore, Rodimus?” Ultra Magnus asked, and Rodimus shuddered. Kup, it seemed had taken care of bringing it up all on his own. Maybe he _did_ know about the bond, after all.

Rodimus sighed, and turned to face his partner. Ultra Magnus, amazingly, did not look embarrassed at all. He looked as he always had looked: stolid, and a bit uncomfortable.

“I can’t…” Rodimus started, and dragged his hand down off his helm. Frag, this was difficult. “I can’t…sleep with anyone. Anymore.” He looked away, not really wanting to see his partner’s complete lack of emotion. “At all.” Knowing Ultra Magnus, it probably wouldn’t matter anyhow.

It was still something that was difficult to say.

Ultra Magnus, however, didn’t respond at all, leaving Rodimus standing awkwardly next to the berth, wanting to be anywhere but there. He could have been helping clear the roads, or helping explore Shockwave’s Space Bridge Bunker, or hell, he could have been back inside of Unicron. It was better than standing here, feeling limp, not even detecting any emotions off of the mech that he was bonded with.

“So,” Ultra Magnus began, at last. Out of the corner of his optic, Rodimus could see the hauler looking at him. “The last mech you got to sleep with was a Decepticon?”

Rodimus’s hand dropped away from his face, completely shocked.

It dangled useless at his side, mirroring the other, his shoulders slack, his mouth hanging open.

“You knew about that?” was all he managed, feeling his spark twist with something so far past embarrassment he couldn’t even put a label on it anymore. It was bad enough to sleep with a mech against your will.

It was even worse when someone knew about it.

“I saw one flying away from the tower last night. I calculated its trajectory, and came to check in on you.”

“Which is when you tried to ‘knock.’” Rodimus looked back at the still-open door. At least that explained the urgency with which Ultra Magnus entered. It didn’t explain why he’d slept through it, of course, but it wouldn’t have been the first night that the Matrix had knocked him out cold. His body had needed the recovery.

“I’ll get someone to fix the door.”

“Don’t,” Rodimus shivered, and wrapped his arms around himself, starting to move towards it and then stopping, glancing back to Ultra Magnus on the bed. “I think I’m done with sleeping in this room. It’s these _balconies._ ” He gestured, and then pulled the arm back, hating how vulnerable he suddenly felt with Ultra Magnus watching him when Ultra Magnus knew what had transpired.

“They’re a security risk,” the larger mech agreed, and Rodimus nodded fiercely.

“Exactly. I could fall off one, anytime.”

“You could,” Ultra Magnus spoke, “and then we would have to find a new Prime. It would be very inefficient.”

“Oh, yes. Though I think I’d manage to twist myself when I fell so that I landed Matrix first. And if that didn’t work, I’d try slipping a few times in my death throes. Either way, you wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore.”

“Rodimus…” the hauler started, and was cut off with a sharp look.

“Don’t. Don’t even start in on me about it. I know it is a cultural artifact. I know it saved us from being eaten by a planet-sized transformer. I know it’s one of the few relics from our past that has _survived_ , but so help me if I had the opportunity right now I’d smash it. Last night was…” He shuddered, and looked down, realizing he’d been pacing, not even having the right word to finish off his sentence with.

“I know.”

“No!” he shouted, surprising even himself with his own vehemence but _furious_ at the audacity of his friend to say that _._ He whirled on Ultra Magnus, fast enough to see the hauler flinch. “You don’t know! You _can’t_ know what it put me through.”

His footsteps turned toward the berth, feeling his own emotions rushing over him like a tide, something he’d been holding back for way too long because he’d become Rodimus Prime.

“You don’t know what it’s like to sleep with the femme you’ve always wanted, and know she’s only doing it for duty.” He shivered. “You don’t know what it’s like to sleep with your best friend, and find out…and find out that it could have been _more._ You don’t know what it’s like to be in so much pain that you have to rip the Matrix from your chest to get away from it, to think you’re finally free, to maybe even start to feel a little bit of relief and then have it trick you into bonding with someone.”

That last one, finally, hurt Ultra Magnus. He could tell, and subconsciously he reached up to his own spark chamber, rubbing where it ached inside.

“I said I’d do this. I told you that the night we were together.” Rodimus sighed. “And I am going to do this. I’m going to be Rodimus Prime. I’ll rebuild Cybertron. I’ll even try not to attack Decepticons if I have to, because it’s what the Matrix wants. I just…” he trailed off, and pursed his lips together. “I just don’t like what I had to go through. I wanted my last night to be with you.”

There was only silence, for a moment.

He hadn’t meant to say that, at all.

Before the start of this whole mess, Ultra Magnus would have been the last mech he expected to bond with. He didn’t know how to feel about it, still. He _couldn’t_ , because it was too fresh, and because then there had been last night, but before last night it had felt okay.

It had felt _good._

It had felt _really_ good to be around the hauler, and to know that there was someone solid and dependable to lean on. It had felt good to have his whole team. It had felt good to be out on their adventure, accomplishing what needed to be accomplished, really feeling in-tune with the mechs he’d come to know. It had felt good to be Rodimus Prime.

They counted on him. He counted on them.

And now, somewhere out in the cosmos, there was someone else who counted on him, too. He had a duty to make Cybertron inhabitable. He had a duty to make a world worth living in. He had a duty, to make all into one.

It didn’t stop him from hating what the matrix had done, but it did make it easier to get off of his berth each day.

“I know,” Ultra Magnus said, and Rodimus stared at him. One white hand was laying on his blue torso, curled into a fist just over his spark, mirroring Rodimus. “I know. Exactly. How you feel.”

Rodimus winced.

Rodimus winced, because he’d been an absolute fool.

Ultra Magnus knew how he was feeling.

Of course he did.

He had to.

They were connected, right now. They’d _been_ connected through their bond, making Ultra Magnus the only mech to know the pain he’d been through, intimately. Ultra Magnus had known, last night, when he had been worried. He’d known, last night, the words to say to make Rodimus feel better.

He’d known, last night, about the Decepticon…

Oh, Primus.

He’d known.

No wonder he’d tried to break the door down, afterward. He’d have known the instant that Rodimus’s spark was touched.

“You felt him, didn’t you,” Rodimus murmured, distraught.

“I…did,” Ultra Magnus responded, with a stir of embarrassment that brushed over Rodimus. “I’m sorry I couldn’t arrive, sooner, but it…” the large mech glanced down to his fist, and squeezed it tighter over his chest.

“It can be overpowering, can’t it,” Rodimus almost whispered, understanding.

“Yes. That is one word that I would use.”

So, he hadn’t been alone, after all. In some ways, that made this much, much worse…but in other ways, it made it better. Ultra Magnus experienced what he experienced. Ultra Magnus knew.

And he, Rodimus, could probably experience what Ultra Magnus experienced, too.

That was a challenge.

It was also a relief.

Crossing back towards the hauler, Rodimus reached out. He took the large fist up into both of his hands, and put it over his torso, instead, flattening it out, feeling it lay, comforting, over his etched flames. “Don’t. Tell. Anyone.” He spoke, serious, meeting Ultra Magnus’s gaze. “Don’t tell them about the Decepticon. Don’t tell them about the bond.”

“I was not planning on it.” Ultra Magnus nodded, and spread his fingers out, feeling across Rodimus’s chest. “That is your call to make.”

“You get a say in it too, you know.” He kept both hands on top of Ultra Magnus’s one, letting the contact soothe him, letting himself feel connected to something, to someone real.

“Then don’t phrase it like an order,” the hauler countered, his other hand reaching out to rest on Rodimus’s waist.

“Okay, good point.” With Ultra Magnus lying there, Rodimus was sorely tempted to take a day for himself and crawl back up on the berth, letting himself drape over the other until he finally felt rested at last. He wanted it, too much, enough that he could feel his engine purring loudly underneath the other’s hands, broadcasting his intent forcefully to his partner, willing him to understand.

He did.

He did, and he picked Rodimus up carefully, pulling him into his lap.

“There will be a time when it’s alright to let everyone know both things,” Rodimus amended, resting against the other mech. He was conscious, still, of the open door, but no one was out there right now that he could see. He could take a few minutes.

A few.

Just a few, for himself.

“We’ll let the core team know,” he continued, letting himself relax. “I want Perceptor to check Shockwave’s records so that we can learn what he knew about this. And I want them to get used to the idea of Decepticons, and I want them to get used to the idea of _us._ I don’t want to surprise anyone.”

Ultra Magnus nodded, and put his arms around Rodimus. “Tell whoever you think should know.”

“You’re alright with it, then?” He looked up, wanting to make sure.

“I am.”

“Good,” Rodimus murmured, settling into Ultra Magnus’s embrace, pleased to feel his spark nearby, and even more pleased to have his theoretical permission.

He was Prime now.

The ritual was over.

He wasn’t, technically, supposed to sleep with anyone else.

However, he could feel anything that Ultra Magnus could, and no one had placed the hauler under _any_ of those restrictions.

“Good,” he repeated, and leaned up to give his partner a kiss. “I’m glad you’ll be alright with threesomes.”

Any protests were muffled by his lips, but Rodimus wasn’t really worried, either way.

He was Rodimus Prime.

He wanted this, and there was nothing that the Matrix could do about it. He could have this mech, and he could enjoy him, too, any time that Ultra Magnus was alright with it.

That would, admittedly, take a little bit of coaxing, but it would probably be a little while before Rodimus was ready again, anyway.

It was, at least, something.

It was something, and it was his, and maybe being Prime wouldn’t be so bad.

It wouldn’t be.

He’d work hard. They’d all work hard, together. They’d rebuild Cybertron.

And in the meantime…

He’d get to see how good Ultra Magnus was at following orders.

That, he knew, would be his favorite part of all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Its hard to remember back a few years ago, but I can probably summarize what happened as to why this chapter didn't get uploaded based off the aggravated notes I left myself in my story.
> 
> From what I can tell, after being so frustrated with the Cyclonus chapter, I wrote a final chapter and decided I would come back and look at all the chapters when I was feeling better about it. 
> 
> Then, having the terrible memory that I do--I forgot.
> 
> When sufficient time passed I realized that I should just take a look at all the chapters and see how they held up, and in doing so I realized that they were perfectly fine and that I should just hurry up and end this story. So I did!
> 
> For those just peeking in to see the last chapter...I also re-did the Cyclonus chapter. Its different now, if you want to take a look.
> 
> Either way, I want to thank you for sticking through this, and especially I want to thank you for the comments, kudos, and support. <3 It has been a fun ride.


End file.
